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The US doesn't reprocess spent fuel, so that's 2000 tonnes of spent fuel per year or half the volume of an olympic pool each year. [0] Reprocessing fuel isn't
by cinntaile 4y ago
The US doesn't reprocess spent fuel, so that's 2000 tonnes of spent fuel per year or half the volume of an olympic pool each year. [0]
Reprocessing fuel isn't very economical, digging for uranium ore makes a lot more sense.
[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
- credit_guy 4y agoThe claim about the garage box was incorrect, still the amount of spent fuel is not high. Half an olympic pool per year shared among 70 reactors over a period of less than 70 years means each reactors stores about half an olympic pool. A nuclear power plant is fairly big, so half an olympic pool is a tiny bit of real estate inside it. It can easily go up by a factor of 10 and nobody would notice.
- cinntaile 4y agoI agree that it's not that much when you consider the amount of energy that is generated from that fuel.