Great Falls man now in Idaho a nuclear waste expert

The earth is heating up in what has prompted a lively discussion across the world.

With all the talk about climate change, not much is said about nuclear energy. In their favor, nuclear power plants — the United States has 99 nuclear power units, and another is expected to begin producing commercial power in Tennessee this summer — release virtually no carbon into the atmosphere.

At first blush, many people can’t get beyond fear of a disaster such as Chernobyl in 1986 in Russia; the Three Mile Island partial-meltdown in the United States in 1979; or flooding from a 2001 tsunami that caused nuclear plant cores to melt in Japan. Nuclear power plant disasters are rare but scary.

Talk a bit more about nuclear power plants, and the subject might veer to this: If more nuclear power plants are built, what can be done about spent fuel from the plants?

C.M. Russell High School graduate Jack Law, who grew up in the Electric City, is one of the nation’s experts on how to dispose of nuclear waste. He works at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls.

“There are probably only a few dozen people around the world” with Law’s knowledge of nuclear waste disposal, according to his boss, Terry Todd, director of the fuel cycle science and technology division at the Idaho lab. Todd himself grew up in central Montana, in communities including Denton and Lewistown.

“He’s really contributed a lot to the laboratory and to the field,” Todd said of Law. “He’s known both nationally and internationally.”

Law is careful in his work, as he should be, Todd noted.

“He’s very methodical,” Todd said. “When you’re working with things like radioactive materials, you have to be methodical.”

Law was thrilled in February to receive the Idaho National Laboratory’s award for individual lifetime achievement in science and technology. The award is bestowed once a year or not at all; Law was pleased to be honored by his peers.

“It’s a big lab” with about 4,300 employees, Law noted. “There are a lot of great people.” The Idaho laboratory is managed by Battelle Energy Alliance for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.

Spent nuclear fuel is Law’s specialty. Currently in the United States, spent fuels is stored at power plant sites, “with eventual planned disposal” in a geological repository underground, he said. The West, has potential sites for radioactive material, including Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But no state has volunteered to be a nuclear waste depository, and any moves in that direction have generated everything from resistance to hysteria.

By the way, simply tossing out spent fuel left over from nuclear power plants isn’t the only option.

“My area is looking at recycling the spent fuel,” Law said. “In other countries, for example in France, they recycle the spent fuel.” So does Russia and Japan.

Only about 5 percent of the fuel is used up in the nuclear power process, Todd noted.

“You can recycle it back to the reactor,” Law said.

A nuclear reactor burns actinides, elements including uranium and plutonium, used in nuclear reactors. Other actinides, or elements, burn in the process, too.

Ideally, nuclear power plants would recycle the actinides, which have long half-lives, meaning they can take many years to become harmless.

“Americium has a very long half-life ... thousands of years,” Law noted.

That kind of talk sets people on edge. Law acknowledges some fear remains about nuclear power in the United States. Such worries may be fading, though.

“It seems to me like there has become a greater acceptance of nuclear power over the last decade,” Law said, since nuclear power produces no carbon dioxide. “That’s become important to many people now with the climate change issue. It makes sense to pollute the atmosphere as little as you can.” Renewable energy such as wind and solar isn’t produced around the clock, either.

“In the U.S., we generate more power from nuclear energy than any other country,” Law added. Nearly 20 percent of electricity in the country is generated by nuclear power plants.

Cost remains an issue for recycling nuclear waste; in fact, the United States has rarely done it.

“It is a big investment to establish a recycling capability,” Law said. Recycling of waste typically fishes out uranium and plutonium from the spent fuel. Law has looked into recycling additional actinides.

“If it takes six or seven different separation processes to get what you need, then it can get more and more expensive,” he said.

“We’re not doing any reprocessing in the U.S. right now,” Law reported. Law studies reprocessing of fuel, aiming to come up with effective and less expensive techniques to try to make fuel recycling feasible. That would help enable the United States to join the list of countries recycling nuclear fuel.

“Certainly that’s my hope,” Law said. “I think it very well could happen. When, I’m not sure.”

Todd speculated the United States might join the recycling group around the middle of this century, if policy-makers begin moving in that direction.

“You’d reduce the amount of spent fuel and it would reduce the amount of heat from spent fuel,” Law reported.

Nuclear power plants always will create byproducts of some kind, even with recycling.

“You can’t just make things go away and not have something left to deal with,” Law said. “The goal really is to reduce the amount of material that you need to dispose of. You’re always going to have some.”

Law takes a calm approach to nuclear disasters, such as the one in Japan half a decade ago.

“As with everything, you learn from when things happen,” Law said evenly. He said the tsunami disaster has prompted additional controls to be put into place.

Futurists like to mention nuclear fusion as an eventual power generator.

“I am certainly no expert on nuclear fusion at all,” Law said. “I do think nuclear energy is going to be around for a long time. It’s a 24-hour source of energy. It’s carbon-free.”

Todd said the nuclear waste field is an important one.

“Certainly, if nuclear (power) continues, we have to find a way to deal with nuclear waste,” Todd noted. “Nuclear energy can help mitigate that (climate change) problem along with other technologies like wind and solar.”

Law’s work aims to deal with nuclear waste in a safe and cost-effective manner.

“I think the research is very promising.” Todd reported.

Countries with nuclear power plants have tried different approaches. About 70 percent of France is powered by nuclear energy, where recycling spent fuel is public policy. The United States government, during the Jimmy Carter administration of the late 1970s, decided not to require private nuclear power plant operators to treat its waste. It did recycle nuclear waste produced by the U.S. Navy.

“We used to recycle Navy fuel,” Todd said. “We don’t anymore.” That ended circa 1992.

Cost is certainly a key reason why the United States has not gotten into the business of recycling commercial nuclear waste. But recycled waste could be used again and again to create more power.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to just throw all this stuff away,” Todd said.

Todd chuckles at the idea that “a couple guys from Montana” — his mother still lives in Denton — would both be working together so closely at a national laboratory where such serious nuclear power research is being conducted.

“I really think science and engineering is a great career,” Todd said.

If there are frustrations with the slow and steady pace of science, the two Montanans don’t express it.

Scientists can’t be in a hurry or rush things; they must take care to produce solid data, Law commented.

“It’s very complex, and you can’t (make) things to happen faster,” Law said. “The quality of the work that you’re doing is key.” But, he said, science progresses as researchers learn how things work.

“You just have to stay optimistic,” Law said. “We work with people all over the world.”

Parents in Great Falls

Law and his wife, Amy Cogswell of Great Falls, both tennis players, knew each other in high school.

“We started dating when we were both in college,” Jack said. For her senior year of college, Amy transferred from the University of Montana to Idaho State University to be near Law, who had already started working for the Idaho lab after gaining a chemical engineering degree from Montana State. They have three children: Jeremy, 26; Tyler, 23; and Olivia, 16.

They live in Pocatello, where Law worked for a satellite of the main lab. Now he commutes about 50 miles one-way to Idaho Falls. Law has worked at the lab for 32 years.

Law’s parents, Helen and Bill Law, still live in Great Falls, as do Amy’s parents, Ann and E.B. “Ted” Cogswell Jr.

Best waterfalls

Law commutes regularly to Idaho Falls.

“The falls in Idaho Falls are much of a falls,” Law confides. “Twin Falls are amazing in the spring.” He says the Twin Falls are sometimes called the Niagara Falls of the West.

Of course, back in Law’s hometown, the Great Falls of the Missouri River have been called the Niagara Falls of the West as well. And waterfalls in Glacier National Park have been rated the most beautiful among the nation’s national parks.