Environmental impact of the nuclear fuel cycle: Fate of actinides

Abstract

The resurgence of nuclear power as a strategy for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has, in parallel, revived interest in the environmental impact of actinides. Just as GHG emissions are the main environmental impact of the combustion of fossil fuels, the fate of actinides, consumed and produced by nuclear reactions, determines whether nuclear power is viewed as an environmentally “friendly” source of energy. In this article, we summarize the sources of actinides in the nuclear fuel cycle, how actinides are separated by chemical processing, the development of actinide-bearing materials, and the behavior of actinides in the environment. At each stage, actinides present a unique and complicated behavior because of the 5felectronic configurations.