5 ms·

Well, France is a bit different in this regard, they indeed have a great expertise in fuel recycling, but the parent comment was talking about fast-neutron reac

by fuoqi 6y ago

Well, France is a bit different in this regard, they indeed have a great expertise in fuel recycling, but the parent comment was talking about fast-neutron reactors such as BN [0] and BREST [1]. Reactors like this not only can "breed" fuel, but also can "burn" the waste as well, thus drastically reducing amount of waste which has to be buried and it makes the waste safer as well, since it will not contain those annoying minor actinides with half-lives in the range of 1k-100k years. France had the Superphenix project [2], but unfortunately it got shut down without a successor... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

godelski 6y ago
So the main part of my comment was really at the end, discussing what is fuel waste and what is auxiliary waste. This is often a difficult conversation with nuclear. Most people don't realize how little the waste is. They then don't realize that only 3% of that tiny amount of waste is the concerning high level radioactive waste. The honest reason we don't invest more into breeder reactors or re-enrichment plants is because the fuel is cheap and we don't create enough waste to worry about it. America had and used the same technology as France, but gave it up because it was too expensive. But this tiny amount of waste is generally why many think you can just bury the waste from the plant on site and move on. Place the high level lowest, medium, then light waste (which is 90% of the material and 1% of the radiation) on top (or we could make a container this way). We're not talking about much physical material from a single plant. We're talking a coke can per person per year (total nuclear, not a single plant) where 3% of that coke can is concerning. Nuclear is already extremely expensive, why increase the cost? Cost is the only real argument against nuclear.

by fuoqi 6y ago

godelski 6y ago

So the main part of my comment was really at the end, discussing what is fuel waste and what is auxiliary waste. This is often a difficult conversation with nuclear. Most people don't realize how little the waste is. They then don't realize that only 3% of that tiny amount of waste is the concerning high level radioactive waste. The honest reason we don't invest more into breeder reactors or re-enrichment plants is because the fuel is cheap and we don't create enough waste to worry about it. America had and used the same technology as France, but gave it up because it was too expensive. But this tiny amount of waste is generally why many think you can just bury the waste from the plant on site and move on. Place the high level lowest, medium, then light waste (which is 90% of the material and 1% of the radiation) on top (or we could make a container this way). We're not talking about much physical material from a single plant. We're talking a coke can per person per year (total nuclear, not a single plant) where 3% of that coke can is concerning. Nuclear is already extremely expensive, why increase the cost? Cost is the only real argument against nuclear.