Nuclear’s Dangerous Waste Is ‘Rapidly Catching Up’ With Industry

Swelling inventories of radioactive waste need to be dealt with more effectively if nuclear energy is to become a key tool in combating climate change, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

While nuclear power stations don’t emit planet-warming greenhouse gases, they do create streams of long-lasting, hazardous waste. It takes engineers and regulators years to plan and execute the decommissioning of a single site, with costs sometimes running into the billions of dollars.

“Even as we look into the future, the past is rapidly catching up,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Monday at a conference in Vienna, where hundreds ...