2 ms·
Reprocessing doesn't get rid of anything other than the tiny fraction which is Pu239. It also dilutes the waste making it much harder to handle and spreads it a
by Schroedingersat 4y ago
Reprocessing doesn't get rid of anything other than the tiny fraction which is Pu239. It also dilutes the waste making it much harder to handle and spreads it all over the place.
Carter wasn't single handedly responsible for every reprocessing facility on the planet turning into a radiation ridden money pit.
- pjc50 4y agoThe UK reprocessing at Windscale/Sellafield seems to have been an engineering success but a commercial failure. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Sellafield-ends-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing-after-58 https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Sellafield-ends-...
- Schroedingersat 4y agoIt spread fission products everywhere, leaked many times more Cs137 than Fukushima, the site will cost many billions to clean despite only reprocessing enough to run a couple of reactors, the sediments it ejected into will never be clean, and it didn't get rid of any meaningful amount of Pu241, Pu240, Am241, Cm, Np or fission products. The fuel it produced was far more expensive than fresh, and it didn't obviate the need to dig up Uranium. Reprocessing achieves nothing other than PR and making bombs (even the 'processing weapons plutonium' is just a PR exercise because the plutonium 'disposed of' had too much Pu241 decay into Am to stay in the warhead anyway).