“Nuclear waste” is the euphemism most frequently used to describe the radioactive by-products of nuclear power plants. But this is misleading, because it incorrectly implies that the by-products are simply unused parts that can somehow be left alone (albeit for a very long time) to decompose naturally. This is analogous to our handling of other waste products: leave it alone and let nature take its course, let the bacteria chomp away at the compost pile and lo, you’ve magically got soil! This thinking is appropriate to backyard gardens (and might possibly be appropriate at dump-sites where we dispose of household, commercial, or industrial chemicals). But the mismatch is that nuclear waste is not a biological or chemical leftover: it is a quantum physics leftover, and it has no rightful place on Earth. Its proper place is in the Sun and the stars – not on the only planet known to support biological processes.

Fission is not a chemical reduction or oxidation process where atoms, which are bound together to form molecules, are split or joined to form new molecules. No, fission is the destruction of the basic building blocks of the universe, which were first formed eons ago in supernovae. Fission does not occur spontaneously on Earth (except in extremely rare cases). When a moving neutron is captured by an atom of U-235, the strong force holding the atom’s nucleus together is destabilized and the atom transmutates into two or more pieces. Uranium dioxide pellets that begin as UO2 end up as “spent nuclear fuel” containing forty-two different elements, from Zinc with an atomic number of 30 through Lutetium with an atomic number of 71. Much of the spent nuclear fuel is transmutated into heavy metals: Zirconium, Molybdenum, Technetium, Ruthenium, Rhodium, Palladium, and Silver. Some is transmutated into solid solutions: Iodine, Xenon, Cesium, Barium, Lanthanum, Cerium, and Neodymium.