Cumulative Global Radioactive Waste Inventories

Description: This graphic represents the cumulative global radioactive waste inventory as compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency up to the year 2000. Different types of activities generate variable amounts of nuclear waste with respective activity. Spent fuel represents the smallest amount of waste generated in total, but holds the highest activity. The largest amounts of wastes are generated by mining and milling, but contain an activity only a millionth of that in spent fuel.
Published in: "Nuclear Waste: Is Everything Under Control?", Environment Alert Bulletins, Nov. 2007
Copyright © UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva. All Rights Reserved.

The Ageing Global Reactor Population

Description: This graphic presents the global number of reactors in operation by age as of 31 Dec. 2005. The majority of reactors are between 20 and 30 years old and the average age is 22. Considering that the expected lifetime of a reactor is 30 to 40 years, decommissioning is going to become a major operation over the next 50 years, leading to vastly increased quantities of radioactive wastes.
Published in: "Nuclear Waste: Is Everything Under Control?", Environment Alert Bulletins, Nov. 2007
Copyright © UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva. All Rights Reserved.

Radioactive Waste Classifications (IAEA)

Description:
Published in: "Nuclear Waste: Is Everything Under Control?", Environment Alert Bulletins, Nov. 2007
Copyright © UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva. All Rights Reserved.

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Description:
Published in: "Nuclear Waste: Is Everything Under Control?", Environment Alert Bulletins, Feb. 2007
Copyright © UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva. All Rights Reserved.

Southern Ural Nuclear Facilities

Description: A violent explosion on 29 September 1957 in the Chelyabinsk-40 complex in Kyshtym, southern Urals, involving dry nitrate and acetate salts in high level waste storage tanks, spread radioactivity over a large area later called the "Kyshtym footprint". The total amount of activity released was of the order of 500 000 TBq of fission products. The area contaminated was nearly 20 000 km2, of which 1 000 km2 was above the permissible limit. At the time, over 270 000 people lived in this highly contaminated zone, of whom 10 000 were eventually evacuated. The accident was concealed at the time and only came to light in the 1980s.
Published in: "Nuclear Waste: Is Everything Under Control ?", Environment Alert Bulletins, Feb. 2007
Copyright © UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva. All Rights Reserved.