Great overview of the technical and economic challenges of reprocessing, but there is particular error I think it necessary to point out:
"The fuel required for pyroprocessing, metallic uranium-plutonium-zirconium alloy, is used in no commercial power plant anywhere in the world including those Russian, Chinese and Indian fast reactors all of which use MOX."
This is not correct; in fact, the very process diagram you use illustrates the head-end oxide reduction process which would be a necessary pre-conditioning step for an oxide-based fuel input to pyroprocessing. Yes, the fuel needs to be a metallic form before electrochemical separations, but this is the whole point of the oxide reduction process.
It's plenty fair to point to the lack of scale-up demonstrated for electrochemical processing, especially as in its current form, it has only been demonstrated as a batch process rather than a continuous process like aqueous processes such as PUREX. But it's not impossible to adapt it to an oxide-based fuel cycle.
Under current policy, La Hague does reduce the volume of waste by about a factor of five. Of course, the depleted tails should not require deep geological disposal. But they are RADIOACTIVE. The reason the tails don't need deep disposal is that they produce nearly no gamma radiation, The alpha and beta radiation that uranium-238 and eventually its daughters has little or no penetrating power. This stuff must be swallowed to do any harm, and even then your main problem would be uranium's chemical toxicity. Uranium's biological half-life in humans is about two weeks, next to none of the swallowed U-238 decays inside our bodies.
But the same thing is true of all the uranium and transuranics. For practical purposes, all the gamma emitters are gone in about 500 years, after which ALL the spent fuel can be land filled. By your argument, La Hague reduces the amount of spent fuel that must be sent to geological disposal not at all, because none of it does. Pls check out
La Hague proved reprocessing does scale. The reason why we don't see the multi-order of magnitude reduction in mined uranium that was promised by breeders is we don't have any breeders. (Actually, the Russians have a couple, the Chinese have one, and the Indians are about to have one. But at current uranium prices, the economics are still dubious.)
What are the isotopes that complicate reprocessing that show up later in the decay process? This is an honest question. The gamma emitters decay relatively quickly if your idea of quickly is a handful of centuries. After about 500 or so years, the material can be "contact handled" by DOT rules, meaning no shielding is required. That should make processing far easier.
There some some new decay products from spontaneous fission of curium but all the curium is gone in about 200 years. I honestly don't know what those isotopes are.
From your silence, I will assume there are no such isotopes. If we wait long enough, say 600 years, we can handle spent fuel like the Hanford workers handled tennis balls of highly enriched plutonium, put one in each pocket of a lab coat, and walk down the hall to deliver them for shipment. Just don't let the balls get together.
Independent of cost and technical obstacles, which countries are allowed and which countries are not allowed to do nuclear reprocessing?
For example. South Korea originally agreed to forgo enrichment and reprocessing when it signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington in 1972. Only in 2025 they were allowed civil uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing for peaceful uses.
UAE committed to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent fuel.
Japan was allowed to do reprocessing, probably because Prime Minister Fukuda was seeing Japan’s nuclear energy goals as “life and death” matters.
Would for example Poland, or Canada be allowed uranium enrichment or reprocessing of spent fuel?
Fuel reprocessing is integral part of many molten-salt reactor designs, which countries would be allowed to build and operate such reactors?
As shown, 95k tons of nuclear waste covers a mid size parking lot a few feet deep, including containers. Compare that to the coming tsunami of landfilled spent solar panels and wind turbines. O&G refining and combustion also produce vastly more waste, including useful byproducts, toxic, and carcinogenic materials.
None of this dissuades me from enjoying lighting and HVAC, and the other fruits of civil engineering.
We are on the cusp of a new era in nuclear fuel. Chris does an excellent job explaining how fast reactor recycling could work. In fact, there are processes that are working to allow spent fuel to be chlorinated and added to a fast reactor process in real time. The more you add, the more heat you get. Of course, as he explained, it is not close to commercial application. The evil is that it is not at all encouraged by the US government, even though they can not find a home for their spent fuel. If a state "consented to accept" the existing spent fuel inventory only if it would be recycled in fast reactors, they would be sitting on a value in energy of $100 trillion (at 10 cents per kWh). It would be amazing how quickly this could be developed if the government would get out of the way and let private enterprise take the lead. In fact, it could be used as a "solution" to "nuclear waste" which has eluded the government for almost 50 years of searching to no avail. So, what state would not want this economic benefit (especially if the $50 billion Congressional Nuclear Waste fund could be used to jump-start a private enterprise effort). I know I will not see this in my lifetime, but Chris is the first to write an article promoting it that I have seen (other than ours). Congrats. Here is the one written on our idea: https://www.sirotinintelligence.com/were-sitting-on-100-trillion-and-want-to-pay-400-billion-to-throw-it-away-steven-curtis-on-americas-nuclear-waste-delusion-why-the-nrc-should-be-shut-down-and-how-texas-could-lead-the-f/. The world cannot thank you enough, Chris.
The UK has experience of reprocessing both at Sellafield and Dounreay as part of the UK fast reactor programme. The termination of reprocessing in the UK has resulted in the words largest stockpile of civil separated plutonium, some 140tonnes. The UK government has decided to dispose of this rather than preserving and converting into MOX fuel for either the current thermal reactors or a future fast reactor program https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/uk-opts-for-disposal-of-plutonium-inventory.
I remember the nuclear disarmament agreements with the Russians which bound the US to dispose of the plutonium by mixing into MOX. The demand for uranium dropped when this happened, prompting the famous sale of half our uranium to the Russians. Now, years later we have disposal problems with the spent fuel. Meanwhile the Russians claim to have vast reprocessing plants. I wonder where they buried the remains ?
Great overview of the technical and economic challenges of reprocessing, but there is particular error I think it necessary to point out:
"The fuel required for pyroprocessing, metallic uranium-plutonium-zirconium alloy, is used in no commercial power plant anywhere in the world including those Russian, Chinese and Indian fast reactors all of which use MOX."
This is not correct; in fact, the very process diagram you use illustrates the head-end oxide reduction process which would be a necessary pre-conditioning step for an oxide-based fuel input to pyroprocessing. Yes, the fuel needs to be a metallic form before electrochemical separations, but this is the whole point of the oxide reduction process.
It's plenty fair to point to the lack of scale-up demonstrated for electrochemical processing, especially as in its current form, it has only been demonstrated as a batch process rather than a continuous process like aqueous processes such as PUREX. But it's not impossible to adapt it to an oxide-based fuel cycle.
Thank you for this feedback. We do cover the oxide reduction process in the episode but perhaps dont give it enough credit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWzI72snmE0&t=5128s
Heads up….nuke threat is a fear porn compliance ritual…
https://soberchristiangentlemanpodcast.substack.com/p/the-nuclear-illusion-fear-fallout
Chris,
Under current policy, La Hague does reduce the volume of waste by about a factor of five. Of course, the depleted tails should not require deep geological disposal. But they are RADIOACTIVE. The reason the tails don't need deep disposal is that they produce nearly no gamma radiation, The alpha and beta radiation that uranium-238 and eventually its daughters has little or no penetrating power. This stuff must be swallowed to do any harm, and even then your main problem would be uranium's chemical toxicity. Uranium's biological half-life in humans is about two weeks, next to none of the swallowed U-238 decays inside our bodies.
But the same thing is true of all the uranium and transuranics. For practical purposes, all the gamma emitters are gone in about 500 years, after which ALL the spent fuel can be land filled. By your argument, La Hague reduces the amount of spent fuel that must be sent to geological disposal not at all, because none of it does. Pls check out
https://gordianknotbook.com/download/nuclear-waste-a-tale-of-two-particles/
La Hague proved reprocessing does scale. The reason why we don't see the multi-order of magnitude reduction in mined uranium that was promised by breeders is we don't have any breeders. (Actually, the Russians have a couple, the Chinese have one, and the Indians are about to have one. But at current uranium prices, the economics are still dubious.)
What are the isotopes that complicate reprocessing that show up later in the decay process? This is an honest question. The gamma emitters decay relatively quickly if your idea of quickly is a handful of centuries. After about 500 or so years, the material can be "contact handled" by DOT rules, meaning no shielding is required. That should make processing far easier.
There some some new decay products from spontaneous fission of curium but all the curium is gone in about 200 years. I honestly don't know what those isotopes are.
From your silence, I will assume there are no such isotopes. If we wait long enough, say 600 years, we can handle spent fuel like the Hanford workers handled tennis balls of highly enriched plutonium, put one in each pocket of a lab coat, and walk down the hall to deliver them for shipment. Just don't let the balls get together.
Independent of cost and technical obstacles, which countries are allowed and which countries are not allowed to do nuclear reprocessing?
For example. South Korea originally agreed to forgo enrichment and reprocessing when it signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington in 1972. Only in 2025 they were allowed civil uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing for peaceful uses.
UAE committed to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent fuel.
Japan was allowed to do reprocessing, probably because Prime Minister Fukuda was seeing Japan’s nuclear energy goals as “life and death” matters.
Would for example Poland, or Canada be allowed uranium enrichment or reprocessing of spent fuel?
Fuel reprocessing is integral part of many molten-salt reactor designs, which countries would be allowed to build and operate such reactors?
As shown, 95k tons of nuclear waste covers a mid size parking lot a few feet deep, including containers. Compare that to the coming tsunami of landfilled spent solar panels and wind turbines. O&G refining and combustion also produce vastly more waste, including useful byproducts, toxic, and carcinogenic materials.
None of this dissuades me from enjoying lighting and HVAC, and the other fruits of civil engineering.
Heads up….nuke threat is a fear porn compliance ritual…
https://soberchristiangentlemanpodcast.substack.com/p/the-nuclear-illusion-fear-fallout
We are on the cusp of a new era in nuclear fuel. Chris does an excellent job explaining how fast reactor recycling could work. In fact, there are processes that are working to allow spent fuel to be chlorinated and added to a fast reactor process in real time. The more you add, the more heat you get. Of course, as he explained, it is not close to commercial application. The evil is that it is not at all encouraged by the US government, even though they can not find a home for their spent fuel. If a state "consented to accept" the existing spent fuel inventory only if it would be recycled in fast reactors, they would be sitting on a value in energy of $100 trillion (at 10 cents per kWh). It would be amazing how quickly this could be developed if the government would get out of the way and let private enterprise take the lead. In fact, it could be used as a "solution" to "nuclear waste" which has eluded the government for almost 50 years of searching to no avail. So, what state would not want this economic benefit (especially if the $50 billion Congressional Nuclear Waste fund could be used to jump-start a private enterprise effort). I know I will not see this in my lifetime, but Chris is the first to write an article promoting it that I have seen (other than ours). Congrats. Here is the one written on our idea: https://www.sirotinintelligence.com/were-sitting-on-100-trillion-and-want-to-pay-400-billion-to-throw-it-away-steven-curtis-on-americas-nuclear-waste-delusion-why-the-nrc-should-be-shut-down-and-how-texas-could-lead-the-f/. The world cannot thank you enough, Chris.
The UK has experience of reprocessing both at Sellafield and Dounreay as part of the UK fast reactor programme. The termination of reprocessing in the UK has resulted in the words largest stockpile of civil separated plutonium, some 140tonnes. The UK government has decided to dispose of this rather than preserving and converting into MOX fuel for either the current thermal reactors or a future fast reactor program https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/uk-opts-for-disposal-of-plutonium-inventory.
I remember the nuclear disarmament agreements with the Russians which bound the US to dispose of the plutonium by mixing into MOX. The demand for uranium dropped when this happened, prompting the famous sale of half our uranium to the Russians. Now, years later we have disposal problems with the spent fuel. Meanwhile the Russians claim to have vast reprocessing plants. I wonder where they buried the remains ?