Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T10:45:36.298Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evolution and Structure of the Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

François Diaz-Maurin Open the ORCID record for François Diaz-Maurin [Opens in a new window] ,
Hilary C. Sun ,
Jerold Yu  and
Rodney C. Ewing
François Diaz-Maurin*
Affiliation:
Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA Amphos 21 Consulting SL, C/ Venezuela 103, 08019Barcelona, Spain
Hilary C. Sun
Affiliation:
Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA
Jerold Yu
Affiliation:
Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA
Rodney C. Ewing
Affiliation:
Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA Department of Geological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA
*
*(Email: fdm@stanford.edu)
Get access

Abstract

The final disposal of nuclear waste is at the interface between the technologies of the nuclear fuel cycle that produce the waste and the natural hydrologic and geochemical cycles of geologic repositories. Despite this broad interdisciplinary scope, nuclear waste management, as practiced, remains “balkanized” among the relevant disciplines. The individual subdisciplines continue to work in relative isolation from one another: materials science dealing with the immobilization of nuclear waste; engineering science dealing with the design, construction and operation of the repository; geoscience dealing with the long-term behavior of host rocks and the hydrology; health science dealing with the effects of radiation; social sciences dealing with the issues of trust, risk and ethics. Understanding how these very different disciplines interact is fundamental to creating and managing a nuclear waste organization. Based on a comprehensive review of the scholarly and scientific literature of waste management, we have analyzed the evolution and structure of research in nuclear waste management between 1979 and 2017. Focusing on materials science, we show that some research themes have been isolated from the most central themes of nuclear waste management. Moreover, we observed a relative decline of the fundamental research in materials science. This decline was evidenced by a drop in the number of articles published in the proceedings of the MRS symposia “Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management” since 2000. We argue for the need to more precisely and inclusively define the field of nuclear waste management.

Keywords

waste managementnuclear materialsenvironmentsocietysustainability
Type
Articles
Information
MRS Advances , Volume 4 , Issue 17-18: Energy-Transfer, Storage and Conversion , 2019 , pp. 959 - 964
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, Report to the Secretary of Energy (U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 2012).Google Scholar
McCarthy, G.J., Schwoebel, R.L., Potter, R.W., Friedman, A.M., Moore, J.G., Burkholder, H.C., and Lutze, W., editors, Proceedings of the Symposium on “Science Underlying Radioactive Waste Management I”, Materials Research Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, USA, November 28-December 1, 1978 (Springer-Verlag US, 1979).Google Scholar
Hirsch, J.E., PNAS 102, 16569 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iglesias, J.E. and Pecharromán, C., Scientometrics 73, 303 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobo, M.J., López-Herrera, A.G., Herrera-Viedma, E., and Herrera, F., Journal of Informetrics 5, 146 (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Högselius, P., Energy Policy 37, 254 (2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz-Maurin, F. and Ewing, R.C., Sustainability 10, 4390 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reset Steering Committee, “Reset” of America’s Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policy (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2018).Google Scholar