Is Spent Fuel Or Waste From Reprocessed Spent Fuel Simpler To Dispose Of?

The lack of a permanent solution to the spent fuel and high-level wastes issue has been a fundamental problem hindering the growth of nuclear power. The Department of Energy (DOE) is attempting to identify the best possible disposal technologies and repository sites and is studying several types of geological media to determine which is best suited for a repository. In addition, it is designing a series of barriers which will surround the nuclear wastes once they are placed in the repository. The first repository will not be completed for 20 years. There is substantial disagreement about whether permanently disposed of high-level nuclear waste should include spent fuel or just the unusable part of the spent fuel that remains after chemical reprocessing.