One major problem facing expansion of nuclear power is what to do with all that waste. There's already literal tons of it — more than a quarter-million tons of nuclear waste are stored at plants around the world — and more is being produced.
In Finland, scientists think they have a solution. They're constructing a massive storage facility deep underground, where they say nuclear waste can be contained undisturbed for millennia. The aim is to be able to expand the use of nuclear energy — which is reliable and safer than fossil fuels for generating electricity — while safely getting rid of the waste.
HuffPost's Alexander Kaufman traveled to Finland and visited the site of the project. We talked to him about what he learned there.
How did you learn about this project, and what made you want to write about it?
For a while now, I have been grappling with the question of what role nuclear reactors should play in our energy systems. Nuclear power is one of the safest, most efficient, and most reliable sources of electricity humans have yet harnessed. But one of the most compelling arguments against building more reactors is that they produce waste that remains dangerously radioactive for a time period longer than most people can conceive of. So this was something on my mind for some time. Then, on one of my regular YouTube wormholes, I found a video about Onkalo, the permanent storage site Finland was building deep in the Earth's crust. I knew about Yucca Mountain, the U.S.'s failed attempt at building a similar repository. But this was not only underway, but seemingly popularly supported and ready to come online shortly. It was also paired with the opening of the first major reactor in Western Europe in 15 years — 25 years, if you don't count the formerly Soviet Czech Republic as part of "Western" Europe. The whole thing was an exciting prospect.
So when I found myself on a completely unrelated trip to the Finnish capital of Helsinki earlier this month, I scheduled a time to go out and see the project myself.
When you traveled there, what were you most struck by?
For starters, the roughly three-and-a-half-hour drive from Helsinki to Olkiluoto Island, on Finland's southwest coast, is a beautiful journey. It was cold and snowy still, but the vast landscapes of farm fields and rolling, pine-covered hills were really something. When I got there, I was taken aback by how unassuming this world-historic energy site actually looked. Here was this rather plain-looking, Nordic-style building in the middle of a wooded fishing island. Finland has a decent amount of industry, so, without knowing better, I would have assumed this was any other timber plant or server farm or some other kind of business. But inside those walls was something the world had never seen before, a system of robots and tunnels meant to entomb radioactive waste for 100,000 years.
What do you hope readers take away from the piece?
Many people are afraid of nuclear power. It's no wonder why. If you grew up during the Cold War, the ever-present threat of annihilation by nuclear weapons would turn any reasonable person against the technology and system that has, from the start, been linked to those otherworldly killing machines. Those of us born after the Berlin Wall fell got a taste of what that felt like in recent weeks. But many people have also been exposed to things that are hilariously scary, like Homer Simpson's handling of a nuclear reactor, or horrifyingly real, like the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
If only the horrors of what burning fossil fuels can do were as embedded in our collective psyche! Coal, gas, and oil cause climate change, yes, but the tiny particles they spew into the air when ignited also cause a wide range of diseases. The ash left over from coal plants pollutes ecosystems with disease-causing metals that, unlike uranium, never decays back into something less lethal. Radioactive materials from fracking waste now cover roadways across this country.
I don't expect this story, or any one story, to change anyone's mind on nuclear power. Nor is that my goal. But I hope readers come away with a sense that this abundant and time-tested energy source is worthy of a more nuanced debate than has so far been had.
