Reprocessing fuel has several benefits. The first is sorting and reducing the volume of waste. Dry casks are an easy solution: the entire fuel assembly is burie

Reprocessing fuel has several benefits. The first is sorting and reducing the volume of waste. Dry casks are an easy solution: the entire fuel assembly is buried. It is possible to separate the fuel pellets from the zircalloy tubes to reduce storage volumes. The next step is the reprocessing of spent fuel to separate depleted uranium, plutonium and minor actinides. It is generally this solution that poses a few problems, as plutonium separation techniques can be misused for nuclear proliferation. The plutonium extracted from spent fuel assemblies is not of sufficient quality for military use. It can be reused in MOX fuel. But not all pressurised water power plants are compatible. At present, civil reprocessing fuel capacities are insufficient. The La Hague plant has its pools full and is sending some of the fuel to Seversk in Russia. But this agreement came to an end with the war in Ukraine.