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The big problem with recycling spent nuclear fuel is that the required reprocessing is much worse in terms of safety than the nuclear power plants themselves. L
by makomk 6y ago
The big problem with recycling spent nuclear fuel is that the required reprocessing is much worse in terms of safety than the nuclear power plants themselves. Lots of lovely, toxic, highly radioactive solutions which are practically iching to go prompt critical and ruin everyone's day. I think the only reprocessing program which managed not to be a safety train wreck is France's, and I half-suspect they might have just been better at covering up because it's so unusual (and in keeping with other aspects of their nuclear program).
- cbmuser 6y agoThe French have been doing it for decades already with not a single casualty: > https://www.orano.group/en/nuclear-expertise/from-exploration-to-recycling/world-leader-in-recycling-used-nuclear-fuels https://www.orano.group/en/nuclear-expertise/from-exploratio... It's not that they are doing the recycling in a cookie factory.
- Klinky 6y agoLa Hague dumps radioactive waste liquids into the North Sea. Reactors currently cannot run 100% on MOX. Separation of Plutonium in the recycling process has proliferation concerns. Other countries have found building similar recycling plants challenging due to cost, with DoE estimating $50+ billion. La Hague was initially designed to extract Plutonium for weapons use, which likely justified its costs at the time. The Marcoule site where MOX fuel is manufactured had an explosion in 2011, which did result in a fatality.
- webreac 6y agoLa Hague used to dump small quantities of radioactive liquid (mainly water used to clean barrels that contained weakly radioactiv waste) in Nort Sea. When I left (in 1999), the project to completely stop this dump was well advanced. The idea was to vaporized the water and collect the remains in a barrel. You are right that we have a lot of plutonium that we can not use. The intent of superphenix was to use this plutonium. It failed.
- p_l 6y agoApparently it burned quite a lot of it, though? Pity that it got closed, I hope technical issues are fixed and a new device based on better understanding replaces it.
- pyrale 6y ago> La Hague dumps radioactive waste liquids into the North Sea. That would be a long pipeline, because La Hague is facing the channel, not the north sea.
- Klinky 6y agoSorry, it flows from the channel into the North Sea.
- pyrale 6y agoThe Hague is closer to the Irish sea, and currents at that location tend to push to the atlantic rather than into the North sea.
- Klinky 6y agoScientific studies show its pollution reaches the North Sea. Simple current maps show current flows through the channel into the North Sea. However, thank you for highlighting it also pollutes the Irish Sea, channel and Atlantic.
- pyrale 6y agoInteresting. Do you have a link to the study ?
- Klinky 6y agohttps://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/wang2/docs/iaea-tecdoc-1587.pdf https://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/wang2/docs/iae... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720332204 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6177659_Radionuclide_speciation_in_effluent_from_La_Hague_reprocessing_plant_in_France https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6177659_Radionuclid...
- natmaka 6y agoIf only it could be so easy! The reality is that the French try hard to put high-level waste deep in under the ground. After more than 50 years of atomic plants and nearly 80 of lab reactors the French haven't a single adequate repository. The most advanced project may open in 2025. An English concise description is already amusing, please read it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_Research_Laboratory#Cig%C3%A9o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_... A more complete version, in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o
- nickik 6y agoThere are many ways to do recycling and we have 100s of years to figure it out. What we do now is doable, but its the worst possible thing. Other forms of recycling are very viable and have much less problems and much less side streams. The problem is of course that anti-nuclear crowed have stopped practically all technology development so they can claim all problems are solvable and nuclear should be abolished. As everything with nuclear, we as a society barley got to first generation technology and then halted all development. Canada is doing some create work with recycling of CANDU fuel, Moltex Energy is in development of a reactor to use that fuel and its a much better process then what the french use.
- StreamBright 6y ago>> iching to go prompt critical Are you kidding? What kind of nuclear waste has even the remote possibility to go critical that is produced by a VVER reactor that is pretty common?