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France has successfully processed 23,000 tons of spent fuel, or 14 years worth. With zero incidents. In fact it works so well, they process other countries' spe
by titzer 6y ago
France has successfully processed 23,000 tons of spent fuel, or 14 years worth. With zero incidents. In fact it works so well, they process other countries' spent fuel, too.
https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nuclear-fuel-the-french-do-it-why-cant-oui https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...
- Retric 6y agoThat article shows the issue. “The entire process adds about 6 percent in costs for the French.” Reprocessing is simply not cost effective due to how cheap reactor grade Uranium is.
- titzer 6y agoSo you are saying the reason a huge problem exists is because money? Hold the phone.
- Retric 6y agoThis is mostly just a problem in the minds of the general public. Individual nuclear fuel rods get significantly less radioactive over time as short half life byproducts decay. Which makes both reprocessing and long term sequestration cheaper. Storing them for ~100 years is relatively cheap and can be funded ahead of time, so punting the issue seems quite reasonable IMO.
- titzer 6y agoWell, sure, we are lucky that the waste from nuclear reactors is primarily solid heavy metals rather than fly ash or anything else, so we can just plunk them into pools and forget about them for a while. But eventually it makes sense to do something with all that waste.
- Retric 6y agoReprocessing doesn’t actually get rid of the highly radioactive waste though. You have exactly as much Caesium-137 and all the other nasty fission products before and after reprocessing, all it does is separate the waste you need to store from the useful fuel while contaminating all your reprocessing equipment. As we have plenty of fuel so that not particularly valuable.
- arnoooooo 6y agoThey have also very successfully "outsourced" part of the reprocessing to eastern Europe… there have been documented reports of storage in huge open vats of fuel officially sent for reprocessing.
- natmaka 6y agoSpent-fuel processing isn't sufficient. After ~50 years with running nuclear plants France doesn't have any long-term waste disposal facility, and is actively searching a solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_Research_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_...