most all of the wastes from nuclear reactors are either stored underground in storage tanks or are stored on site in nuclear waste storage facilities. Nuclear waste keeps building up from year to year and inventories are growing at a rate of approximately 1,800 to 2,200 metric tonnes of uranium annually (Nuclear Energy Agency [NEA], 1998). A safe method of ridding ourselves of this waste needs to be devised because the amount of space in the current storage facilities is depleting very rapidly. By 2040, it is projected that the total spent fuel inventory will total 87,000 metric tonnes of uranium (Nuclear Energy Agency [NEA], 1998).
             The Department of Energy is a federally funded branch of the government whose goals include providing for the permanent disposal of the Nation's high-level radioactive waste. High-level radioactive waste includes the highly radioactive material resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel; the Department of Energy currently stores more than 300,000 cubic meters of high-level waste (Nuclear Energy Agency [NEA], 1998). These high-level wastes are presently stored either in wet storage systems which are water-filled pools, or in dry storage systems which are encased by concrete or metal structures.
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