Reprocessing Nuclear Waste

8/8/2019 Reprocessing Nuclear Waste

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REPROCESSING NUCLEAR WASTE 2

Abstract

Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is examined as an answer to the nuclear industry issues of waste,

storage and proliferation especially with nuclear power expected to expand. Nuclear processes

are explained to establish some familiarity with how nuclear energy is generated. The generation

of mixed oxide from spent nuclear fuel is demonstrated as a safe efficient use of existing

plutonium to answer proliferation concerns and waste storage issues. The reprocessing strategy

could provide services to other countries and jobs for U.S. citizens. The U.S. could benefit from

a new political view of reprocessing its resource of spent nuclear fuel and reduce its high level

waste storage issues and safely consume existing plutonium stockpiles for a growing electrical

power grid.

Keywords: spent nuclear fuel, repository, plutonium, proliferation, mixed oxide


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Reprocessing Nuclear Waste to Power the Future

Nuclear power is a necessary part of Americas electrical power generation industry. It

along with other sources such as wind, solar, and fossil fuel will be needed to meet the expected

one percent growth in electrical power demand per year till 2035 (United States Energy

Information Administration, 2010, p. 65). Nuclear power, compared to fossil fuel, has close to

zero greenhouse gas emissions and less overall environmental pollution. The advantage it has

over solar and wind is in its huge capacity for providing a stable reliable source of electrical

power without limitations of weather conditions. (Bittle, S., and Johnson, J., 2009, pp. 144-145)

Nuclear energy has some disadvantages, one being nuclear waste or spent nuclear fuel

(SNF), which is classified in the U.S. as a high level waste (HLW). The United States is at a

crossroads as to what is the correct course of action to take with SNF. France has taken nuclear

reprocessing technology and used it successfully for 40 years to power their future. This report

will provide reasons why reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is the direction the U.S. should take,


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allowing us to lead instead of follow other countries such as France, Russia, South Korea and

India.

The description of the need for nuclear energy and its advantages requires some

background in the basics of nuclear power generation. Thermal nuclear reactors are the

classification of the current type of reactors in use for civilian nuclear power plants. These plants

work on a process called fission. Fission is the process of splitting a heavy element, such as

uranium and plutonium, with thermal neutrons into smaller higher velocity fragments. These

fission fragments release a lot of heat which is transferred to water that becomes steam which

then spins electric generators that transmit electricity to millions of homes nationwide. (U.S.

Energy Information Administration, 2010, p.1)

The fission process creates more thermal neutrons which in turn creates more fission

which is safely controlled by neutron absorbing control rods. These thermal neutrons also create

plutonium a major player in the political arena which produces more energy, and

simultaneously creates fission product poisons. The poisons reduce the production of neutrons

to a point where the fuel assembly becomes spent nuclear fuel (SNF), and has to be replaced

every 1-3 years. This SNF is currently stored at seventy sites in the United States. (U.S. Energy

Information Administration, 2010, pp. 1, 6)

Hannum, Marsh, and Stanford (2005) find that SNF has about 95 percent of its original

usable energy left. This means that there is a hefty sum of energy ready to be recycled and reusedand since uranium is a finite mineral source and with world demand for nuclear energy

increasing, it makes little sense to discard spent nuclear fuel. (para. 9). When most reactors

were designed, it was expected that fuel would be held for radioactive cooling for only a few


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months, after which time the assemblies would be shipped to a reprocessing plantThe

abandonment of reprocessing by the United States required utilities to store all spent fuel on site,

awaiting acceptance of fuel for disposal by the federal government in accordance with the

Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) (Murray, 2009, p. 365). The Department of Energy

(DOE) has not provided any relief of this situation since the NWPA was agreed upon and has

recently restarted efforts to find a suitable geological repository.

The abandonment of reprocessing used fuel by the United States was a decision that was

reached by former President Jimmy Carter. President Carter felt that asking other countries tonot pursue reprocessing technology was phony, if we did it. His decision was chiefly made by

India producing plutonium from a supposedly peaceful civilian research reactor to make an atom

bomb. He promptly issued a presidential directive that suspended the reprocessing of commercial

SNF in the U.S. This did not stop other countries that had reprocessing technology from forging

ahead (Cravens, 2007, p.272) and in the case of France developing a process that has worked for

forty years.

The policy against reprocessing led to the National Waste Policy Act since the military

and civilian sectors had huge amounts of nuclear waste that had no place to go. The volume of

waste that was being produced was not going away, so now utility companies have to store the

fuel in temporary storage until the government takes some action either for a geological

repository or for reprocessing. The fact is that both avenues should be pursued. The consensus

among nuclear proponents is that we should reprocess. The disagreement is over how to do the

process and the timeframe in which to accomplish it. The other problem is no country in the


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world has a geological repository that is operational; Sweden is currently in the lead on this front

(Advancing Technology for, 2009, p. 41). A timeframe for a reprocessing plant or geological

has not been determined. Deutch et al. (2003) recommends that a temporary facilities with a

capacity for decades worth of storage be constructed in the U.S. (p.87) until these two big issues

are resolved.

Reprocessing is defined as chemical treatment of spent fuel (from reactors) to separate

uranium and plutonium from the small quantity of fission product waste products and transuranic

elements , leaving a much reduced quantity of high level waste (Forsythe, 2009, p. 306). Theseparation of uranium and plutonium allows them to be combined into mixed oxide (MOX)

fuel assemblies and then used in existing thermal nuclear reactors. The truly unusable wastes are

placed into borosilicate glass, which is highly resistant to interactions with water. The

borosilicate waste is placed in highly engineered stainless steel casks and then given final

placement into a geological repository, which is a burial site that was slated to be located at

Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Reprocessing takes advantage of the production of plutonium in SNF by adding it to the

MOX process. The reason this is significant is that Plutonium has a high energy value in its first

recycling: 1 gram plutonium = 100 grams uranium = 1 ton of oil (Forsythe, 2009, p. 143). The

plutonium that produces this energy is smaller than a dime. This high energy value is significant

in that it reduces the amount of uranium needed from existing mines but has the added benefit of

consuming plutonium for reducing proliferation concerns. This means that the more MOX


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reactors, the less plutonium is available for nuclear weapons and it reduces the amount of waste

and toxicity volume to be placed in a geological repository.

MOX fuel developed from SNF has a long history of use in Europe. Germany was the

first country to use it in 1982. There are currently 30 thermal reactors using MOX fuel

assemblies in Europe, and 20 others getting licensed for it. Japan has developed their own MOX

type facility with the intention of having 20 MOX fueled reactors by 2010. (Forsythe, 2009)

Cravens (2007) cites the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as confirming that there is

substantial experience worldwide with MOX fuel since all operating thermal reactors create

plutonium as a part of fission. The Department of Energy (DOE) has made plans to establish

international partnerships to pursue the consumption of plutonium as thermal fuel so that it is not

used for the production of nuclear weapons. (p. 272)

The centerpiece of concern for reprocessing has been the fact of plutonium production

during the fission process. Plutonium concerns are addressed with the fact that it will be

consumed as fuel in the MOX process made possible by reprocessing and not used for weapon

production. Dr. Ferguson summarizes that if a shipment of processed plutonium is placed in the

wrong hands the consequences could be dire. I believe that we need to destroy it for useful

peaceful purposes and continue with the proven security processes we have in place in the U.S.

We are building a reprocessing plant in South Carolina to recycle Department of Defense (DOD)warheads for use in MOX fuel and it is projected to begin production in 2016. (Advancing

Technology for, 2009, p.22) Why can we not do this for our local utility company?


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Advancing Technology for (2009) states, in testimony by Dr. Ferguson, there is no need

to rush either the geological repository or reprocessing and that currently we could store SNF

onsite for the next 100 years (p. 42). Utility companies and the seventy individual sites that are

currently stockpiling the SNF might disagree with this recommendation. Remember, utility

companies designed their reactors with reprocessing facilities available but that went away

because of a Presidential directive.

Ferguson proposed to the Senate that we could give fuel leasing services to other

countries and that we could accept the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from a country to whom we

leased our fuel assemblies, but not necessarily deliver their SNF to the U.S. He states that a third

country could accept the SNF for financial gain and become a regional repository for used fuel.

(Advancing technology for, 2009, p.42) What country would agree to accept anothers SNF?

This proposal would be difficult to sell to other countries, since we do not reprocess or have an

effective long term storage strategy. The U.S. needs to provide leadership by example, which

means to finally construct reprocessing plants and a national geological repository.

Reprocessing has other reasons to be pursued at its current technological stage. Dr.

Hanson (Advancing Technology for , 2009) states that the geological repository at Yucca

Mountain is currently capable of storing only what has been produced and what is projected to

be produced in the next decade without reprocessing. The current fleet of U.S. reactors

produces 2000 metric tons of SNF per year or 20,000 tons per decade. The current SNF

stockpile in the U.S. is 60000 metric tons, if recycled that is enough fuel for all 104 U.S. reactors

to operate for eight years. This is a huge amount of reusable power and a shame if we do not

reprocess this resource and use it.


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Murray (2009) states that reprocessing has merit in ways other than reclaiming uranium

and plutonium for reuse in thermal reactors:

(a) Long-lived materials could be irradiated with neutrons, transforming them to

a safer material for disposal at the geological repository.

(b) The removal of radio nuclides reduces heat load allowing waste containers to

be placed closer together, further maximizing space at a geological repository.

(c) The volume of wastes would be lower because uranium has been extracted.

(d) The recovered uranium could be saved for future use in breeder reactors. (pp.

371-372)

The U.S. is concerned about countries creating their own reprocessing plants and

generating huge plutonium stockpiles. Reprocessing plants are expensive and for poorer

countries this is a significant hurdle. The U.S. could offer to reprocess a developing countrys

SNF and return the unusable wastes to that country, following the French model. The

reprocessing technique that is being proposed for U.S. use does not separate out pure plutonium

therefore making it unattractive for use in a nuclear weapon. (Advancing technology for, 2009, p.

23) This would prevent problems with nuclear proliferation in those developing countries.

There is a nuclear renaissance going on in the U.S. These nuclear power plants generate

a huge amount of carbon free power but all of them combined create 2000 metric tons of spent

nuclear fuel per year. This has stockpiled over the past 40 years at your local utility company,

who has provided temporary storage for their SNF due to governmental indecisions. The latest is

Yucca Mountain being rejected by the current administration at DOE as a geological repository.

A repository will be needed regardless of whether we decide to reprocess or not.


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Reprocessing provides a way to reuse the huge amount of energy left in SNF from

uranium and plutonium. This reuse reduces proliferation concerns, especially since the proposed

reprocessing facility to be constructed does not process pure plutonium. It provides a way to

reduce the toxicity of SNF by 90 percent and volume by 75 percent. These reductions will save

plenty of space at utility companies interim storage and at the national geological repository

when the DOE decides to build it. America needs to move forward by establishing a national

repository and reprocessing its SNF to generate carbonless electrical power for its present and

future generations.


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Refe r en c e s

Advancing technology for nuclear fuel recycling: what should our research, development, and

demonstration strategy be?, Hearing before the Committee on Science and Technology,

House of Representatives , 111th Cong.21 (2009)

Bittle, S., and Johnson, J., (2009). Who Turned Out the Lights . New York, NY, USA:

HarperCollins. .

Cravens, G.,(2007). Power to save the world: The truth about nuclear energy , New York, USA:

Alfred A. Knopf

Deutch, J., Moniz, E.J., et al. The Future of Nuclear Power. An interdisciplinary MIT study,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA, USA, 2003 ISBN 0-615-12420-8

Forsythe, J. (2009) 3Rs Of Nuclear Power: Reading, Recycling, and ReprocessMaking a

Better Tomorrow for Little Joe , Bloomington IN, USA: AuthorHouse.

Hannum, W. H., Marsh, G. E., & Stanford, G. S. (2005, December). Smarter use of nuclear

waste . Scientific American . Retrieved May 17, 2010, from

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste

Murray, R., (2009). Nuclear Energy : An Introduction to the Concepts, Systems, and

Applications of Nuclear Processes , Burlington, MA , USA: Elsevier

United States Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Annual Energy

Outlook 2010, Retrieved May 23, 2010 from

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/trend_3.pdf


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United States Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, U.S. Introduction to

Nuclear Power, Retrieved May 27, 2010 from

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/intro.html

Reprocessing Nuclear Waste

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