What's the difference between spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste, are they the same concept?
FYI:
Technical Report High-level waste repository-induced effects
In Switzerland, the Nuclear Energy Law requires the disposal of all types of radioactive waste in deep geological repositories (KEG 2003). The Swiss Radioactive Waste Management Programme
(Nagra 2008a and b) foresees two types of deep geological repository:
1) a high-level waste repository (HLW repository) for spent fuel (SF), vitrified high-level waste (HLW) and long-lived intermediate-level waste (ILW); and
2) a repository for low- and intermediate-level waste (L/ILW repository).
High-level radioactive wastes are the highly radioactive materials produced as a byproduct of the reactions that occur inside nuclear reactors. High-level wastes take one of two forms:
- Spent (used) reactor fuel when it is accepted for disposal
- Waste materials remaining after spent fuel is reprocessed
Spent nuclear fuel is used fuel from a reactor that is no longer efficient in creating electricity, because its fission process has slowed. However, it is still thermally hot, highly radioactive, and potentially harmful. Until a permanent disposal repository for spent nuclear fuel is built, licensees must safely store this fuel at their reactors.
Reprocessing extracts isotopes from spent fuel that can be used again as reactor fuel. Commercial reprocessing is currently not practiced in the United States, although it has been allowed in the past. However, significant quantities of high-level radioactive waste are produced by the defense reprocessing programs at Department of Energy (DOE) facilities, such as Hanford, Washington, and Savannah River, South Carolina, and by commercial reprocessing operations at West Valley, New York. These wastes, which are generally managed by DOE, are not regulated by NRC. However they must be included in any high-level radioactive waste disposal plans, along with all high-level waste from spent reactor fuel.
Because of their highly radioactive fission products, high-level waste and spent fuel must be handled and stored with care. Since the only way radioactive waste finally becomes harmless is through decay, which for high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the public for a very long time.
https://www.nrc.gov/waste/high-level-waste.html
Dear Mushtaq Ahmad
Thanks for your helpful answers.
FYI:
Article Chemical-Technological and Mineralogical-Geochemical Aspects...
One of the most important problems in the nuclear energetics is the management of radioactive wastes (RW), first and foremost, high-level radioactive wastes (HLW). The HLW are generated by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) of different nuclear reactors after the extraction of uranium and plutonium (the Purex-process), and in large amounts by defense programs. They include the fission products of actinides, the corrosion products of reactor materials, residual uranium and plutonium, minor actinides (neptunium, americium, and curium), and technological reagents. Actinides are the most dangerous components of the HLW due to the long half-life and high toxicity.
According to the refference:
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1419_web.pdf
High level waste is defined to be waste that contains such large concentrations of both short and long lived radionuclides that, compared to ILW, and generates significant quantities of heat from radioactive decay, and normally continues to generate heat for several centuries. HLW typically has levels of activity concentration in the range of 104 -106 TBq/m3 (e.g. for fresh spent fuel from power reactors, which some States consider radioactive waste) and conditioned waste arising from the reprocessing of spent fuel together with any other waste requiring a comparable degree of containment and isolation.
The fuel exhausted in the reactor to sustain feasible fission reaction further is generally termed as spent fuel & for facilities without reprocessing facilities, it is regarded as radioactive waste while those with reprocessing arrangements the material left after extracting desired isotopes is termed as radioactive waste. The extracted component can be used to initiate fission in reactor or in weaponization.
It depends the nuclear political plan in your country. If the country has a plan to reprocess/reuse this spent fuel, it's a spent fuel. When the country determine that this spent fuel will not be reuse, then it's a HLW.
If the country doesn't have a nuclear program who determine it, you can treat it as HLW until the nuclear country program
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