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Global experience shows that reprocessing and breeder reactors are not viable

France has not solved its nuclear waste problems and now needs a repository in face of strong public opposition to the development of such a facility.

Nuclear waste reprocessing not viable for United States: study, Solid Waste & Recycling Magazine, 4/19/2010 Reprocessing of nuclear waste is neither an affordable remedy for future waste disposal in the United States nor will it eliminate the need for a deep geologic repository to replace Yucca Mountain, according to a recent study released by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group.

Even as some are urging the Obama Administration’s blue-ribbon panel on nuclear waste to consider the options of reprocessing and breeder reactors, the IEER study looks at the global experience – including those of France and Britain – and finds that both approaches are widely misunderstood in the United States.

France has not solved its nuclear waste problems and now needs a repository in face of strong public opposition to the development of such a facility. Contrary to what is widely believed, France uses less than one per cent of the underlying uranium resource despite reprocessing.It cannot increase this above one per cent without breeder reactors, which face immense cost, safety, and proliferation hurdles. It spends about a billion dollars a year extra in fuel costs because of reprocessing. The British reality is even worse.The IEER study shows that, despite enormous expenditures worldwide, breeder reactors are not commercial……

The latest demonstration reactors in France (Superphénix) and Japan (Monju) have been failures. As well, breeder reactors and reprocessing will increase proliferation risks and costs.

The study notes that a deep geologic repository would be required to replace Yucca Mountain in any case.

The IEER provides policy-makers, journalists, and the public with understandable and accurate scientific and technical information on energy and environmental issues. IEER’s aim is to bring scientific excellence to public policy issues in order to promote the democratization of science and a safer, healthier environment.

Solid Waste & Recycling Magazine – Nuclear waste reprocessing not viable for United States: study

April 20, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, technology | antinuclear, AREVA, enriched, fast breeder, France, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear spin, plutonium, radiation, reactors, recycling, uranium