HIGH LEVEL WASTE REMAINS UNAPPROACHABLE AND EXTREMELY TOXIC

[Oscar]

HIGH LEVEL WASTE REMAINS UNAPPROACHABLE AND EXTREMELY TOXIC FOR HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS

Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility [ http://www.ccnr.org ] - January 20, 2026

Friends and Colleagues:

Q: When does irradiated nuclear fuel become less radioactive than uranium ore?
A: Never!

Mark Twain once wrote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I would add to that short list many of the reassurances promulgated by nuclear enthusiasts. Take high-level nuclear waste for example.

Nuclear proponents often reassure the public and decision-makers that, after 10 million years or so, the high-level radioactive waste from nuclear reactors is more-or-less on a par with the original uranium ore found in nature from which the uranium fuel was extracted. Sounds reassuring, no doubt, but it is not true.

First of all, the language itself can be misleading. Many people may not realize that uranium ore is much more dangerously radioactive than uranium itself.

That’s because the ore is a mélange of uranium and its two dozen radioactive progeny, including isotopes of radium, polonium, and radon, as well as radioactive varieties of bismuth and lead.

See [ http://www.ccnr.org/U-238_decay_chain.png ] & [ http://www.ccnr.org/U-235_decay_chain.png ]

Each one of these byproducts of uranium is much more radiotoxic (i.e.following ingestion or inhalation) than uranium itself. Indeed these pernicious radioactive poisons (esp. radon, radium and polonium) have already killed countless hundreds of thousands of humans exposed to them in one way or another.

Due to the presence of these radioactive progeny, uranium ore also gives off a lot of highly penetrating gamma radiation (the principal cause of external whole-body irradiation). Pure uranium gives off very little gamma radiation.

Second point: not all uranium ore is the same. Some ores are a lot more dangerous than others. And none of them is as dangerous as irradiated nuclear fuel after 10 million years.

The potential health hazard of uranium ore depends on the “grade” of the ore. The grade is the concentration of uranium per gram of ore. The grade also dictates the concentration of all of the radioactive progeny. So, the higher the grade, the more radioactive and the more radiotoxic the ore is.

At Cigar Lake in Northern Saskatchewan, for example, we have “very high-grade” ore averaging about 17 percent uranium. That ore is more than 150 times more radioactive (and radiotoxic) than uranium ore from Elliot Lake Ontario, having an average grade of about 0.1 percent uranium.

It so happens that the Cigar Lake ore is the richest (i.e. the highest grade) ever found on Earth. The ore is so intensely radioactive that it cannot be safely mined by human beings, but must be mined using robotic equipment.

See: [ https://saskpolytech.ca/news/posts/2021 ... n-win.aspx ]

But hold on a minute. Even after ten million years, the concentration of uranium left in spent fuel is about 98.5 percent for Canadian CANDU fuel, and over 94 percent for irradiated LWR fuel. That is a MUCH higher “grade" than any uranium ore ever found in nature.

So even after ten million years, used nuclear fuel is about 480 percent MORE radioactive and radiotoxic than the uranium ore at Cigar Lake – which is in turn more than 100 times more radioactive and radiotoxic than most other uranium deposits that have been mined in other countries. And that estimate is based ONLY on the uranium progeny mentioned above.

But that’s not all. In addition to uranium and its progeny, the ten-million-year-old CANDU used fuel bundles contain other radioactive poisons not found in uranium ore at all, such as caesium-135 (half-life 2.3 million years), iodine-129 (half-life 16 million years), palladium-107 (half-life 6.5 million years), and zirconium-93 (half-life 1.6 million years).

So when Canadian nuclear establishment people tell you that after 10 million years CANDU spent fuel is about as dangerous as naturally-occurring uranium ore, they are bending the truth by a significant amount. They are also misleading people by not explaining the difference between uranium ore and uranium in a refined form.

Incidentally, the Ontario Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning (commonly called the Porter Commission) published a graph in their 1978 Report “A Race Against Time” showing that the overall radiotoxicity of used CANDU fuel (the blue line in the graph) decreases for the first 50,000 years or so, and then increases to a higher level as the result of inbreeding of uranium progeny. Although it is not stated in the report, the radiotoxicity level of used nuclear fuel after ten million years does not change for a very long time after that – it remains relatively constant for the next several hundred millions of years.

See [ http://www.ccnr.org/hlw_graph.html ] (Notice the “dip” in toxicity around 50,000 years.)

Gordon Edwards.
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P.S. What is “radiotoxicity”?

Penetrating gamma radiation gives external “whole-body” exposure, like x-rays. High levels of gamma radiation can cause radiation burns, severe radiation sickness, and even death in a relatively short time period. Such is the case with spent fuel for the first few centuries after being discharged from the reactor, and in the very long term when it has become much more radioactive than the “hottest” uranium ore ever found on Earth.

Keeping a safe distance from such intense gamma-emitting objects or utilizing heavy radiation shielding can protect individuals from over-exposure and prevent immediate damage due to gamma radiation exposures.

But not all radioactive materials give off such penetrating radiation. In fact some materials such as radon, polonium, plutonium, tritium, carbon-14, and many others are “internal emitters” that are almost completely harmless outside the body. Radiotoxicity is a term used to describe the biological harm that is done by ingesting or inhaling or otherwise absorbing such radioactive materials into the body. Depending on the organs where these toxic materials lodge and the residence time (how long the material stays in the body), as well as the type of radiation being given off (usually alpha particles or beta particles), the biological damage can manifest itself as cancer, genetic mutation, depressed immunity, blood disorders, cardiovascular illnesses (heart attacks and strokes) – and in the case of embryonic exposures, radiation damage can result in childhood illnesses, stillbirths, spontaneous abortions, mental insufficiency, or anatomical malformations.

In the very long term, the dangers of radioactivity from radioactive waste that has escaped back into the environment will be due to contamination of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, or the soil that we cultivate and inhabit. While not all kinds of radioactivity are external hazards, all of them are internal hazards. Contamination of the food chain is one of the biggest concerns.

Gordon Edwards.

= = = =
More info on high-level nuclear waste:
[ www.ccnr.org/hlw_resources_2024.pdf ]

Declaration of the Anishinabek/Iroquois Alliance on Radioactive Waste
[ www.ccnr.org/Joint_Declaration_2-2-.pdf ]

Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President,
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility