Studying the effectiveness of nuclear waste storage over time is an essential, but difficult, task. If it were to be done in real time, the research would take hundreds of thousands of years.
In an article published this week in Nature Materials, a multidisciplinary team that includes Jie Lian, a professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, described what researchers learned when they simulated nuclear waste storage conditions over long stretches of time. Using their findings, the researchers also suggested strategies for improving the U.S. storage plan.