nuclear-news

Recycling plutonium more dangerous and costly than burying it

Experts urge Britain to bury plutonium rather than recycling
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120510p2g00m0in010000c.html 10 May 12, WASHINGTON (Kyodo) — Four U.S. nuclear experts urged Britain to bury plutonium rather than recycling for fuel for nuclear reactors as it is more cost-effective, according to the British science journal Nature’s Thursday edition.

Citing an estimate in 2000 that recycling plutonium from spent fuel to make mixed oxide fuel adds $750 million each year to the cost of electric power generation in France, the four said, ”Britain should seriously evaluate the less costly and less risky method of direct
plutonium disposal, and take the opportunity to lead the world towards a better solution for reducing stockpiles.”
The four are Frank von Hippel, a professor of public and international
affairs at Princeton University and co-chair of the International
Panel on Fissile Materials, Rodney Ewing, a professor of earth and
environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, Richard Garwin,
a physicist and IBM fellow emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research
Center in New York, and Allison Macfarlane, an associate professor of
environmental science and policy at George Mason University in
Virginia.
”In evaluating methods for plutonium disposal, Britain should also
consider the experience of the United States,” the four experts said.
While the cost of disposing of its 34 tons of plutonium has soared to
more than $13 billion, the value of fuel produced is likely to offset
costs by only $1 billion to $2 billion, the article said.
In Britain, a reprocessing facility that built in Sellafield at the
cost of $2.3 billion was shut down in August 2011 due partly to design
flaws, they said, adding Britain, which holds the world’s largest
stockpile of separated civilian plutonium, should follow a path ”in
which plutonium is treated unambiguously as the dangerous weapons
material that it is.”

May 10, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, Reference, UK