Too Valuable to Bury? Spent Fuel, Private Operators and Who Pays for Nuclear Waste

The Lift Line

“Too valuable to bury” does not mean “nothing ever needs to be buried.”

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

Most answers on the SHANTI Act discuss private entry, supplier liability and the regulator. This column, by a physicist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, takes the neglected back end of the fuel cycle: spent fuel and radioactive waste. It connects the three-stage programme (a Prelims staple) with regulation, public finance and ethics (intergenerational equity). It follows our deep dive on the draft SHANTI Rules consultation.

GS Paper 3: Infrastructure: energy; achievements of Indians in science and technology; conservation, environmental pollution and degradation; disaster management. GS Paper 4 (link): Intergenerational equity and accountability in public decisions.

Background and Context

The three-stage programme. Designed by Homi J. Bhabha, it rests on India’s modest uranium and large thorium reserves:

As background, the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam attained first criticality on 6 April 2026, marking India’s entry into stage two (see our SHANTI deep dive). Because stage two needs plutonium from stage one, spent fuel in India has always been seen as a resource.

The SHANTI Act, 2025. It replaced the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, allowed private companies to build, own and operate nuclear power plants, and gave the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) statutory status. As background to this column, draft SHANTI Rules, 2026 were published for consultation on 14 August 2026; the window closed on 4 September.

The provision the author questions. According to the column, the draft rules require an operator’s financial security to remain in place until all spent fuel has been removed from the reactor’s storage pool. In the draft Rules this is Rule 77(2), which concerns the operator’s security for nuclear damage, that is, accident liability. Removing fuel from the pool solves a storage problem at that plant; it does not settle where the material finally goes.

What the same drafts also provide. The column does not mention three other provisions that bear directly on its argument:

So the drafts already contain a tariff-linked levy of the kind the author proposes, and they move spent fuel, with funding, to the Central Government. What they leave open is the rate of the levy, the content of the national policy and any timeline for a repository.

The Analysis

1. Resource or liability: the words decide the money. If spent fuel is an asset, nobody sets money aside for it; if it is a liability, someone must. For six decades the same government owned the reactors, the reprocessing plants and the future costs, so the question never had to be answered. Private operators change that.

2. Reprocessing separates; it does not erase. Officials often note that reprocessing leaves only a small fraction of the original material as high-level waste. That is technically correct but can mislead. Reprocessing splits spent fuel into several streams (reusable fuel, radioactive waste, contaminated equipment, metal cladding), each of which must be managed safely. Less high-level waste is not no waste problem.

3. Two clocks, easily confused. There is a genuine scientific reason to wait: spent fuel and vitrified waste generate heat, which must fall before permanent disposal is practical. But finding a site, studying its geology, building institutions and winning public consent take decades. Per the author, a senior BARC official said in 2015 that India would need a repository only after 30 to 40 years, and the government has told Parliament that one is not expected to be needed in the near future. “Not needed yet”, he writes, is not “not needed”.

4. What other countries learned. Finland spent decades developing its repository programme; the United States spent decades on Yucca Mountain before the project effectively stalled. The lesson: a repository can take decades to plan even when the waste is not ready to go into it.

5. Three fixes, set against the drafts. The author proposes three changes; the draft Rules already go some way on two of them:

The precision that earns marks. Separate three things an answer often merges: liability for an accident (the operator’s third-party liability, the focus of the SHANTI debate), decommissioning (dismantling a plant at the end of its life) and spent fuel and waste management (which outlast the plant). The draft Rules fund each separately: accident security and the Nuclear Liability Fund (Rules 77, 107 and 108), the decommissioning security (Rule 111) and the Spent Fuel Management Fund (Rules 109 and 110). The pool clause the column questions belongs to the first.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

The fuel cycle:

• India follows a closed fuel cycle: spent fuel is reprocessed to recover uranium and plutonium.
• Stage one uses PHWRs on natural uranium; stage two uses fast breeder reactors on plutonium; stage three uses thorium.
• As background, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (500 MWe), Kalpakkam, attained first criticality on 6 April 2026.
• High-level liquid waste from reprocessing is vitrified (fixed in glass) and stored under surveillance.

The law:

• The SHANTI Act, 2025 replaced the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010.
• The AERB, constituted in 1983 by executive order, gets statutory status under the SHANTI framework.
• As background, draft SHANTI Rules, 2026 were published on 14 August 2026; consultation closed on 4 September 2026.
• Draft Rule 77(2): the operator’s nuclear-damage security lasts until all spent fuel leaves the reactor pool.
• Draft Rules 109-110: a Spent Fuel Management Fund, fed by a tariff-linked levy until permanent shutdown.
• Draft Rule 111: a segregated decommissioning security that covers disposal of radioactive wastes.
• After cooling, spent fuel is repatriated or delivered to the Central Government (draft Rule 3(4)).

Prelims, the traps:

• Reprocessing reduces the volume of high-level waste; it does not remove radioactivity.
• Removing spent fuel from a reactor pool is storage, not disposal.
• Stage two runs on plutonium bred in stage one, not on thorium; thorium is stage three.
• The pool clause (Rule 77(2)) is accident-liability security, not the waste fund, which is separate.

⚠️ Watch the trap: A deep geological repository is for permanent disposal of high-level waste; an away-from-reactor storage facility is interim storage. Do not use the terms interchangeably.

The Debate

For waiting. Spent fuel is a genuine resource for stage two; high-level waste must cool before disposal; and the draft Rules already create a Spent Fuel Management Fund, so money will accumulate while India decides on a repository.

For deciding now. Costs that arrive decades after revenue will fall on future taxpayers unless money is set aside now. Private operators may exit, merge or fail long before disposal. The siting and consent process is the slowest part and cannot be compressed later.

The balanced verdict. Keep reprocessing. Make the funds the drafts create real by notifying an adequate levy and the national spent fuel policy, and keep them ring-fenced; then start site characterisation and public engagement early. Doing so costs little now and avoids an unfunded liability later.

How to Think About This

Ask who pays at the end of the life cycle. For any long-lived infrastructure (nuclear plants, mines, landfills, dams, offshore platforms), costs arrive long after profits. The policy question is always the same: is money set aside while the asset earns, and does responsibility survive a change of owner? This lens applies to mine closure funds, extended producer responsibility for plastics and e-waste, and decommissioning of solar panels.

Diagram-in-Words

Takeaway Box

• India’s model: closed fuel cycle; spent fuel is a resource for stage two of the three-stage programme.
• The drafts: accident security lasts until fuel leaves the pool (Rule 77(2)); a tariff-linked Spent Fuel Management Fund (Rules 109-110); a segregated decommissioning fund (Rule 111).
• The science: reprocessing separates materials; high-level waste remains and must cool before disposal.
• The lesson abroad: repositories take decades (Finland; Yucca Mountain stalled in the US).
• The author’s asks: a ring-fenced per-unit levy (in the drafts; rate pending), responsibility beyond the site, and a date to start the repository search (not addressed).

Sources: The Indian Express, Department of Atomic Energy

Source: Too Valuable to Bury? Spent Fuel, Private Operators and Who Pays for Nuclear Waste — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis