New form of uranium found that could affect nuclear waste disposal plans

Reported today on The Guardian

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New form of uranium found that could affect nuclear waste disposal plans

Research shows underground storage can create new form of element which could affect groundwater

A new form of uranium has been discovered which is likely to have implications for current nuclear waste disposal plans, say scientists.

Many governments are planning to dispose of radioactive waste by burying it deep underground. However, new research has found that in such storage conditions a new chemical form of uranium can temporarily occur, while small amounts of uranium are released into solution. If uranium is in solution, it could make its way into groundwater.

The nuclear industry currently provides 20% of the UK's power, and radioactive waste in the UK is estimated to amount to 750,000 cubic metres – enough to fill the Albert Hall seven times over. It is currently stored in surface sites, but it could be hundreds of thousands of years before this waste ceases to be hazardous.

Governments are searching for a way to safely dispose of the waste, and an international consensus is moving towards geological nuclear waste disposal – burying it several hundred metres underground. Many countries are already building such disposal units.

"You can't sterilise the Earth," says Prof Samuel Shaw, a mineralogist at the University of Manchester and one of the authors of the study, led by University of Manchester's Prof Katherine Morris and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Shaw explains that wherever you bury these disposal units, there will be a wide variety of microbes living under the ground as well. Since no man-made barrier can be expected to withstand degradation for hundreds of thousands of years, radioactive waste will be in co

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