High-Level Waste on EnergyNotehttps://energynote.kr/en/tags/high-level-waste/Recent content in High-Level Waste on EnergyNoteHugoen-USThu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900Designing for 100,000 years: the world's deep repositories, from Onkalo to Korea's Gyeongjuhttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/world-repositories/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/world-repositories/<p>The Great Pyramid of Giza has stood for about 4,600 years, which makes it one of the oldest large structures humans have built. A handful of countries are now building facilities that must stay safe for <strong>more than 100,000 years</strong>: deep geological repositories for high-level radioactive waste, mostly spent nuclear fuel. Engineering a guarantee longer than recorded history is hard enough.</p>Reprocess or bury? The world map of spent-fuel policy, and why Korea can't decidehttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/reprocessing-vs-disposal/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/reprocessing-vs-disposal/<p>Every fuel assembly that leaves a reactor core has to go somewhere, and for seventy years the nuclear world has argued over where.</p> <p>There are only two real destinations. <strong>Reprocessing</strong> dissolves the fuel and pulls out the uranium and plutonium that can be used again. <strong>Direct disposal</strong> leaves the fuel as it is, seals it in a container and buries it in deep rock.</p>