does the nuclear waste affect climate change

Enrique Casanas answered on 6 Dec 2021:

Good question! Nuclear waste has no effect on climate change as it produces no greenhouse gases. However, nuclear waste can have a significant impact on the environment. That’s why the entire community is trying to push towards proper disposal facilities, to make sure nothing nasty escapes.

Gavin Thomson answered on 6 Dec 2021:

I don’t think anyone has asked me this before, and its a good question and very topical at the moment too.
Focusing purely on the waste, and not all the matters in relation to its generation in the first place, I don’t believe that radioactive waste itself is likely to significantly affect climate change, for example in terms of significantly contributing to increases in atmospheric temperatures or greenhouse gas concentrations from radioactive decay. Have you thought of some way that it could? However, when thinking about everything that goes into managing radioactive wastes it is important that a waste producer sufficiently considers how their actions in designing, operating and closing facilities to store and dispose of the wastes could affect climate change (as well as other matters).
Also some radioactive wastes can have significant amounts of radionuclides which have long half lives (and so decay slowly) and therefore it is necessary to consider how the impacts of climate change need to be addressed over the lifetime of the radioactive waste when it is hazardous. This could be a very long period of time and so on these timescales climate change may need to be considered in how radioactive waste is managed.
The Environment Agency is the environmental regulator for radioactive waste disposals in England and therefore we take these, and other, matters into account when regulating.
There is some more information on the principles we use when regulating radioactive waste at the following link
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/radioactive-substances-regulation-rsr-objective-and-principles
I hope this answers your question.

Alex Clyne answered on 6 Dec 2021:

Nuclear waste does not affect the climate – it does not produce carbon dioxide! The issue with nuclear waste is that it can be quite radioactive and can be dangerous for people to touch, or even be near.

There are lots of solutions that scientists are looking at to solve this – one solution is to bury it underground until it’s safe to handle in the future and another solution is to turn some of it into fuel for new nuclear reactors. We don’t have the answers for this yet, but scientists are working on it!

Tom Ross answered on 6 Dec 2021:

Nuclear waste doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, so it will have no warming effect on the globe.

I think the most important thing to remember about nuclear waste is that there really isn’t very much of it – in the UK, we store all of the nuclear waste we have ever created in one room! Admittedly, it’s quite a big room, but that’s a very small amount of waste for 70 years of nuclear energy usage (and the room has lots of space left).

If waste created by one DAY of UK fossil fuel usage fitted in that same room, that would already be far better than the situation we have today, and if 70 years of UK fossil fuel waste could fit into one room, that would be far better than the best-case scenarios for reducing UK emissions at the moment.

Dimitris Samaras answered on 6 Dec 2021:

Nuclear waste itself does not emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. The only emissions would be from processing and transportation (both of which can be decarbonised).

There is a potential environmental impact however, in the fission products with very long half lives: these can still be radioactive hundreds of thousands of years in the future, and may leak from the disposal facilities to the biosphere. Waste disposal research is heavily focused on developing leak-proof disposal concepts, in order to prevent exposing future generations to any radioactivity leaking from the waste.

Helene Brett answered on 6 Dec 2021:

It doesn’t have a direct affect on climate change.
The storage of waste can be controversial. There is a project in Finland which I believe is the first long term storage for spent (waste) nuclear fuel. It is called Onkalo (meaning small cave), and goes deep underground.
There was a film regarding this facility as it took a long time to get the planning approved and it raised some philosophical and thought provoking questions – how can it be protected from human/animal disturbance for up to 100,000 years, which is longer than any human structure has survived in our history so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film)

Antonios Banos answered on 6 Dec 2021:

That is an interesting question. There are no direct greenhouse gas emissions originating from nuclear waste. Of course, the environmental footprint of nuclear waste storage and disposal needs to be addressed adequately in the future. The community has made a lot of progress on that respect. In the meantime, new generation nuclear reactors will be built which will not only produce lower quantity wastes during operations but will also be able to operate using spent nuclear fuel waste as their own fuel.

Rhys Satchell answered on 7 Dec 2021:

I would say yes, dealing with nuclear waste requires;
1) a workforce to manage it;
2) transportation (maybe even international);
3) places to store it;

All of these parts to dealing with nuclear waste will create green house gases. It could be through the vehicles used (cars, lorries, boats, trains) or through materials used to contain it (concrete or steel)

Sarah Lu answered on 7 Dec 2021:

This is a great question!
Nuclear waste has no direct effect on climate change as it doesn’t produce greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
However, nuclear waste can have a significant impact on our environment. This is why it’s so important to store and dispose of nuclear waste properly. Managing and storing this nuclear waste does currently create greenhouse gases though!

Marianne Morris answered on 7 Dec 2021:

Nuclear power and the wastes generated do not directly produce greenhouse gases but, as with everything, there is an associated carbon footprint. This is generally related to the carbon emissions produced during construction of a nuclear power station (a LOT of concrete is needed) as well as construction of facilities to manage the legacy waste and in transporting wastes to/from different facilities until it reaches a final storage destination.

Similar emissions are produced by all types of energy production but the difference is that fossil fuels produce significantly higher carbon emissions as part of the electricity generation itself. That’s why we call nuclear and renewables ‘clean’ energy.

Nuclear waste does have it’s own environmental and safety hazards that are separate to the climate change issue. It is very carefully managed and strictly regulated by government and international laws to make sure it does not present a danger to people and the environment. This is a big part of my job 🙂

Caroline Roche answered on 8 Dec 2021:

Yes, the act of creating the waste will have some affect on the climate. But it is less than your conventional power stations such coal fired.

Rachel Hayden answered on 8 Dec 2021:

This is a great question! Although nuclear waste doesn’t directly impact climate change, as it doesn’t produce Carbon Dioxide, it can have a big impact on the environment. If nuclear waste isn’t disposed of safely and harmful nuclear waste enters our eco-systems this can greatly affect the biodiversity in the area. If the eco-systems then breaks down this could cause for example trees to die which reduces the amount of Carbon Dioxide being taken out of the atmosphere, thus increasing global warming and climate change. This is why it is vital that all nuclear waste is disposed of using proper disposal facilities.

Question: does the nuclear waste affect climate change

Comments