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DOE Launches Nuclear Waste Disposal Initiative (energy.gov)
mdsolar writes: The Department of Energy is formally launching its initiative aimed at establishing a disposal site for spent nuclear fuel. The department said Monday that it is accepting input on the disposal plan, which centers on finding at least one place to store spent fuel, with the consent of the local community. Officials are also planning forums throughout 2016 to inform a more concrete plan for establishing a disposal site. It's a key step toward rolling out what the Obama administration thinks is the best way forward for nuclear waste disposal. It stands in stark contrast to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, which was designated by Congress to be the country's main waste site, but which the Obama administration canceled amid strong local and state opposition to it.
> So how much of the "waste" is just spent fuel that can be reprocessed vs irradiated materials and other construction trash and whatnot
It depends on the type of reactor. The MAGNOX and CANDUs have better neutron economy, so you can burn all sorts of mixes that won't burn in a typical US or French reactor. That said, France is the #1 reprocessed, and the UK and Canada are both involved too (along with Russia and Japan).
In the best-case scenarios, you can get the equivalent of 30% recovery - that is, you can get enough fuel from the waste to cover 30% of what you burned to get that waste. It's not insignificant, but it certainly doesn't eliminate the waste problem, in spite of what you might have heard. The real advantage is that it tends to isolate the nastier bits, which means that part can be stored more easily while you can put the larger-in-volume-but-less-nasty stuff somewhere less intensive.
As always the only real problem is cost. Reprocessed fuel costs much more than just digging up new stuff from the ground. As reactors can't really compete on the market right now even with the current fuel glut forcing prices down, they can't even think about used reprocessed fuel. Again, that depends on the cycle, at least some of the fuel being used here in Canada is reprocessed.
The good news is that the good parts don't burn off quickly, so if there is a need for reprocessed fuel, you can always go and get it from storage. Of course, it will be a very cold day in hell before the economics are in your favor, given the CAPEX on wind and solar for fiscal '16.
yeah but the thing is
1 you are now dealing with a TENTH of the mass
2 the gack left is less radioactive than the stuff you started with (and has much shorter half-lives)
3 in some cases you can run the waste back through to "cook" it even more