nuclear-news

Nuclear reprocessing is not the answer to the nuclear waste problem

“No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments — including advances in reprocess and recycle technologies — have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer,’’ the report said…..

A Long, Long Road to Recycling Nuclear Fuel, NYT, By MATTHEW L. WALD, 15 Nov 11, The question of what to do with spent nuclear fuel from civilian power reactors has stirred renewed interest in reprocessing — that is, chopping up the fuel, retrieving materials that can power a reactor and possibly recovering the most troublesome waste products so they can be broken up in the reactor into easier-to-handle elements.
But the Energy Department, which is supposed to is evaluate different ways that the used fuel could be recycled, has a long way to go, according to the Government Accountability Office. In a report released on Wednesday, the auditors noted that the Department of Energy had listed a huge number of potential ways to do the job and classified the methods according to the degree of promise that each held. Still, the department’s evaluation does not indicate the state
of technical progress for the many technologies that would be needed, the report said.

And the Energy Department has not coordinated its work with the
companies that run reactors to ensure that the technologies it
evaluates are actually of commercial interest, the Government
Accountability Office said.

The United States tried reprocessing in the 1970s, but it was not a
financial success. Then- President Gerald R. Ford and, later,
President Jimmy Carter banned reprocessing because they feared that it
would set a bad example for other countries. Reprocessing produces a
stream of plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs. The
United States already has a surplus of plutonium, but countries
without nuclear weapons could use reprocessing of civilian materials
as a steppingstone to nuclear weapons manufacturing, policy makers
feared……

after the Obama administration stopped all work on a proposed nuclear
waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, attention turned back to
reprocessing. A commission that he subsequently appointed to study the
issue of nuclear waste reported in a draft in July that recycling
should be explored but pointed out that even with recycling, there
would be leftovers that would have to be buried.

“No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel
cycle technology developments — including advances in reprocess and
recycle technologies — have the potential to fundamentally alter the
waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the
next several decades, if not longer,’’ the report said…..
Representative Edward J. Markey, a  Democrat from Massachusetts who is
a longtime critic of the industry, said in a statement that nuclear
recycling was “an oxymoron.”

“These technologies are unwanted by industry, expensive and prone to
proliferation risks,’’ he said….
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/a-long-long-road-to-recycling-nuclear-fuel/

July 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general