Combining blockchain and IoT for safe and transparent nuclear waste management: A prototype implementation

Having reliable information regarding the status of nuclear waste along its lifecycle has been identified as a major booster of public confidence in nuclear programs. The technical solutions proposed in the literature to address this issue remain confined to proof-of-concept implementations within the boundaries of individual nuclear plants. In this work, we aim at answering the following question: How can we design a system to monitor the radioactive waste information along its complete lifecycle across different stakeholders, while making such information also safely available to the public when necessary? The proposed system combines IoT and blockchain technology. IoT sensors placed on nuclear waste drums allow to generate information regarding their status in real time. Blockchain provides an immutable repository for the drum monitoring information decentralized across a set of stakeholders, like nuclear waste originators, waste packaging and transportation companies, storage sites, and regulatory bodies. Following the principles of design science research, we describe a prototype implementation of the proposed system based on a private instance of Ethereum and its application in a pseudo-real use case in Korea. The proposed system is the first of its kind evaluated by practitioners and aims to set a reference for future implementations in this field.