Storing Nuclear Waste in Salt Deposits may not be the Best Alternative

摘要

Salt has a hidden dark side, and we're not talking about high blood pressure or heart disease. Unfortunately for us, it might not be as good at storing nuclear waste as we once thought. A study published in November in Science Advances finds that we might have to take our assumptions about the mineral deposits with a grain of salt. But let's start back at the beginning, with why dry-packing nuclear waste in salt became our go-to nuclear storage solution. For decades, underground salt deposits have been held up as the ideal storage sites for nuclear waste. Currently, the only nuclear waste repository in the United States, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, is situated in a salt deposit 2,000 feet thick. Why? Because salt deposits are remarkably stable.