Bush Administration to Support Nuclear Recycling

Ironsides writes "The Washington Post is reporting the the Bush Administration is planning to re-enrich spent nuclear fuel so that it can once again be used in nuclear reactors. Included in the plan is a proposal to take spent fuel from other countries and re-enrich it for use as well as domestic spent fuel. This would be a break with a policy set forth by President Carter in an attempt to discourage nuclear proliferation. Currently $250 Million as been proposed for FY 2007 to start developing the technology."

Comments

White House

[lawrenqj]

I still like the idea of burying it under the white house...

stop worrying and learn to love plutonium!

[Thud457]

Just build a proper breeder reactor program, you stupid nancies!

Re:stop worrying and learn to love plutonium!

[argosian]

Exactly!
Our current methods for nuclear generation and the treatment/disposal of spent nuclear fuels is short-sighted, wasteful and environmentally irresponsible. Anti "nook-yoo-ler" sentiment aside, nuclear generation is potentially far safer and far less environmentally devastating than fossil fuel generation. IANANE, but I'm at least moderately conversant for a lay-person and it seems to me that there are numerous options, including various types of 3rd and 4th generation breeder/fast reactors, that will result in greater safety (the Integral Fast Reactor design is virtually melt-down proof), less waste (virtually zero transuranics and actinides ever leave some types), higher output, higher fuel efficiency (from about 1% in current thermal reactor designs up to 95%+ for IFR and some other types) and significantly reduced expense (there is at least one lead-cooled design that is intended to be a turnkey operation for small-grid/developing country type deployments, requiring very little maintenance and with a 15-20 year refueling interval)

There was an interesting article on this subject in the December Scientific American and wikipedia( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor )has numerous articles, if you want a quick rundown on the operation, advantages and disadvantages of various designs.

Large-scale transition to safe, efficient, modern reactors could break the stanglehold that the #@$&ing oil companies and OPEC (Organized Petroleum Extortion Cartel) have on the energy market and, by extension, on much of the world's economy. Further, introducing smaller, inexpensive, self-contained designs could go a long way toward elevating living standards in much of the developing world.

Re:Makes sense

[ivan256]

the dangers of Nuclear Power (which are there, however big one thinks they are)

I don't think anybody argues that nuclear power isn't dangerous. Only that modern nuclear power technologies are less dangerous than our current fuel of choice: Coal.

SciAm Article: Smarter Use for Nuclear Waste

[johndeerejedi]

There was a good Scientific American article in December 2005 about using fast reactors to use waste fuel from other reactors to produce power using pyrometalurgical techniques to process the fuel. I'm sorry but all Scientific American has is a preview of the article, entitled http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D556 0-D9B2-137C-99B283414B7F0000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa00 6 "Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste". The gist of the article is that current thermal reactors use only 5% of the enriched nuclear fuel (U235) and the waste includes a lot of Plutonium, U238, and other actinydes that the process in the article would consume. This pyrometalurgical processing also prevents taking out the Plutonium--it takes out the waste products, like Strontium. Since it can consume U238, Thorium, etc. it would be able to "burn" something like 95% of the nuclear fuel and the waste products would be short lived radioactive waste. I hope this is the procedure they are using, and not breeder reactors or conventional reprocessing.