Disposal Facilities and Repositories

Is there a difference between a "geologic repository" and a "disposal facility" for nuclear waste?

Merriam-Webster defines repository as "a place, room, or container where something is deposited or stored". (Also: a side altar in a Roman Catholic church - who knew?). The free dictionary's top picks are "a place where things may be kept for safekeeping" and "a warehouse". "Repository" does not clearly denote permanence, unlike "disposal".

There are now three low-level waste disposal facilities in the U.S. (Barnwell, SC; Richland, WA; Clive, UT). The facility in Utah, by the way, is run by a company that was in the news recently for wanting to import waste from Italy.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) is a facility in a bedded salt deposit outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico that has been accepting both low level waste and transuranics (this usually means elements heavier than U) since 1999.

Are all of four of these facilities repositories? There are certainly references around the internet for each facility being described as either or both of these terms. Still, there is a tendency to only use the term “repository” for big projects that can accept highly radioactive waste. I have also heard WIPP described as the only operational repository for nuclear waste in the world. (Perhaps it is the only operational deep repository in the world?)

I am sometimes dismayed by the conflation of the terms “repository” and “disposal site” because it reflects a certain level of confusion and potentially conflicting goals in handling nuclear waste: We want to put our extra U and Pu in a safe place – so safe that everything will be fine if we call the stuff waste and leave it there for thousands of years – but we also on some level want the option of retrieving those energy sources from our nuclear warehouse if we decide we need them 200 years from now. On second thought, maybe the dual term is exactly right.