French-Style Nuclear Reprocessing Will Not Solve U.S. Nuclear Waste Problems

IEER: French-Style Nuclear Reprocessing Will Not Solve U.S. Nuclear Waste Problems
France Uses Less than 1 Percent of the Natural Uranium Resource, Has Higher Waste Volume; Reprocessing Still Requires a Repository and Increases Costs, Proliferation Risks

WASHINGTON, April 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Contrary to some prevailing opinion, reprocessing would not eliminate the need for a deep geologic disposal program to replace Yucca Mountain. It aggravates waste, proliferation, and cost problems. The volume of waste to be disposed of in deep geologic repository is increased about six times on a life-cycle basis in the French approach compared to the once-through no-reprocessing approach of the United States.

A new report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a nonprofit scientific research group, shows that France uses less than 1 percent of the natural uranium resource, contrary to an impression among some policy makers. The report has several recommendations for President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, which was created to address U.S. nuclear waste issues after the administration's cancellation of the Yucca Mountain program.

IEER President Dr. Arjun Makhijani, the author of the report: "In recent years, a 'French fever' has gripped the promoters of nuclear power in the United States. Praise of France's management of spent fuel by reprocessing, including its use of the extracted plutonium as fuel in its nuclear power reactors, is now routinely heard. But it is a fantasy on the scale of the 1950s "too cheap to meter" mythology about nuclear power to imagine that 90 or 95 percent of the "energy value" of U.S. spent fuel can be extracted by reprocessing."

Key IEER report findings include the following:
-On a life-cycle basis, French-style reprocessing and recycle increases the volume of waste that would have to disposed of in a geologic repository. Reprocessing results in high-level radioactive waste and large volumes of Greater than Class C waste, both of which must be managed by deep geologic disposal. Their combined volume on a life-cycle basis is estimated to be about six times more than the no-reprocessing approach that is current U.S. policy, according to Department of Energy estimates. Low-level waste volume and waste transportation shipments are also estimated to increase several-fold.
-France spends ...

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ieer-french-style-nuclear-reprocessing-will-not-solve-us-nuclear-waste-problems-90233522.html


See also:
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/nuclear_proliferation_and_terrorism/nuclear-reprocessing.html

A new report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a nonprofit scientific research group,

The volume of waste to be disposed of in deep geologic repository is increased about six times on a life-cycle basis
in the French approach compared to the once-through no-reprocessing approach of the United States.
============================================

What do you expect the stupid anti-nuclear groups like IEER and UCS to say? BTW, although the "S" in UCS stands
for "scientists", UCS is NOT a scientific organization. It is an activist group that was set up to oppose
nuclear power. How / why they call themselves "scientists" is beyond me.

I posted what a true scientist says. Dr. Charles Till is a nuclear physicist who was the Associate Director
of Argonne National Lab when he gave this interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Rhodes for Frontline:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

The comment above about the volume of waste is a real test of critical thinking capabilities.

If you don't reprocess the waste, like the USA; and recycle none of the waste; you have 100% of your
spent fuel is treated as waste.

However, 96% of spent fuel is Uranium-238, which is no more radioactive than the day it was dug out of the ground.
See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel

96% of the mass is the remaining uranium: most of the original 238U and a little 235U.


You could put this stuff back in the ground ANYWHERE without any special provisions, because that's where it came
from. We could just put the Uranium-238 back where we got it in a Uranium mine.

However, we now treat Uranium-238 as highly hazardous waste ONLY because it is mixed in with 4% waste that
is hazardous. Reprocessing separates U-238 from the 4% fission products and actinides. That would be a
REDUCTION in the volume of waste by a factor of 25. Kris says it's an increase of a factor of 6; so he's
WRONG by a factor of 150.

In order for Kris to be correct, reprocessing would have to increase the amount of radioactivity. The
problem is that so many anti-nukes didn't study high-school level chemistry and physics and are totally ignorant
of the fact that reprocressing is a chemical operation, and chemistry does NOT create more radioactivity.

A reactor can turn non-radioactive materials into radioactive ones by bombarding them with neutrons. But chemical
reactions don't create radioactivity.

However, the anti-nuke organizations count on the ignorance of people like Kris to peddle their misinformation.

One of the MYTHS that the anti-nukes have peddled is that radioactivity is "contagious"; that all you have to do
is be in the presence of something radioactive and you "catch it" like the cold. Professor Richard Muller of the
University of California Physics Department debunks that myth in his book, "Physics for Future Presidents":

http://books.google.com/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=Muller+radioactivity+contagious&source=bl&ots=_0iZSEzkGw&sig=jXGOOjhimQqpZt7fCxEZBhMGY9Q&hl=en&ei=5FmUTqfOIM_JiQL_95mVBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Please people - go to the chemistry or physics teacher in your local high school and ask them if chemical reactions
create more radioactivity. Then you will see that Kris is ignorant of this basic tenet of science.

PamW

The anti-nukers live in an alternate universe where reality rarely intrudes on their favorite subjects, spin, propaganda and outright falsehoods.

The OP doesn't even make sense. If it works in France, why not here?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was no room whatsoever for opinions?

For example, even though the vast majority of “Climate Scientists” are largely in agreement about “Anthropogenic Climate Change” there are still “skeptics,” to one extent or another. (For example, a “skeptic” might agree that CO₂ contributes to warming, but may disagree on its significance. It would be wrong to paint that “skeptic” as rejecting “anthropogenic climate change” altogether, now wouldn’t it?)


You may disagree with the Union of Concerned Scientists, but really… saying, “It is an activist group that was set up to oppose nuclear power.” is simply an ad hominem attack:

http://www.ucsusa.org/about/

Do you believe that the Union of Concerned Scientists views on Anthropogenic Climate Change/Global Warming are scientifically sound?
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/


http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world.
========================================

Kris, you keep gullibly swallowing UCS's propaganda "hook, line, and sinker"!!

Of course they are going to claim to be scientific, and for motherhood, truth, justice, and the American way....

What do you expect? Do you think they are going to come out and say, "We are bunch of activists with a preconceived
notion on the safety of nuclear power"?

UCS was formed by activists that were opposed to nuclear power, and the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire,
specifically.

If UCS is a "scientific" organization when it comes to nuclear power, then the Republican Party is a "scientific" organization
when it comes to climate change.

Kris - get a clue!! Quoting from UCS's own propaganda is NOT going to impress me or change my mind one whit.
Why would you even "think" ( term used loosely ) that it would.

Kris - I IGNORE your crap from UCS! It's not a valid scientific organization.

Now go see if you can find an independent disinterested ( do you know the meaning of the word "disinterested"), and
get some backing from them.

But don't waste my time and the bandwidth by quoting from UCS and claiming it is authoritative with regard to nuclear power
in any way shape or form.

PamW

You know, http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/">The American Association for the Advancement of Science? (The people who publish http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science?)

http://www.aaas.org/programs/centers/pe/media/20110304nrc.pdf

The volume of waste to be disposed of in deep geologic repository is increased about six times on a life-cycle basis in the French approach compared to the once-through no-reprocessing approach of the United States.
=======================================

Suppose we have 100 metric tons of spent fuel ( 1 reactor core worth )

We will therefore have, mixed together:

96 metric tons of U-238
2 metric tons of Pu-239 and other actinides
2 metric tons of Fission Products.

Now Kris tells us that after reprocessing we will have 600 metric tons of waste.

Kris, tell us what that 600 metric tons consists of, and
what reactions took us from the above composition to
the 600 ton composition.

Of course, Kris won't be able to do this; because chemistry obeys the laws
of conservation of mass, and doesn't "create" radioacitivity, as per the
popular anti-nuclear myth that Kris and other anti-nukes were duped into
believing because of their poor knowledge of science.

PamW

The OP is a press release; the actual report addresses all of the nuclear industry histrionics above and is available here:
http://www.ieer.org/reports/reprocessing2010.pdf

A small sample:

G. Reprocessing and spent fuel stocks from existing U.S. reactors
As we have seen, statements that 90 or 95 percent of the material in spent fuel can be used are completely invalid without breeder reactors. In this section we will examine some of the implications of a policy that seeks to deal with existing spent fuel by trying to convert the mass of the material into fuel and using it for energy, assuming that breeder reactors will work and can be deployed on a large scale.

We start with a heuristic calculation. A 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactor fissions about one metric ton of heavy metal per year in the course of energy generation. At present, there are over 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the United States. With reactor re-licensing, the total amount of spent fuel could amount to well over 100,000 metric tons by the time the reactors are retired; 95-plus percent of the content of this spent fuel is uranium or transuranic elements (mainly plutonium). We will use a round number of 100,000 metric tons92 of uranium and plutonium content in spent fuel that would be converted into fuel. This corresponds approximately to statements that 90 or 95 percent of existing spent fuel has “energy value” and hence should not be regarded as waste. For instance, such a scheme would appear to be the one that Dr. Miller had in mind and that NRC Commissioner Bill Magwood made explicit in his discussions of spent fuel management.93

Setting aside for the moment a variety of difficult issues, including those associated with the rate of conversion of uranium-238 into plutonium, it is easy to see that it would take 100,000 reactor years (assuming 1,000 megawatt reactors) to convert the heavy metal content of spent fuel from the existing fleet of U.S. power reactors into fission products in a manner that extracts essentially all the physically possible energy value in it.

Assume a reactor operating life of 50 years, accumulating 100,000 reactor years would mean building 2,000 reactors to extract the energy in the total spent fuel from the existing fleet of reactors. This is about 20 times the size of the existing U.S. nuclear power system. It is four times the total electricity generation of the United States and seven or eight times the baseload requirements under the present centralized electricity dispatch system. If the material is consumed in a smaller number of reactors, the time to consume it would be proportionally increased. For instance, it would take 200 years to consume the material in 500 reactors.

THE MYTHOLOGY AND MESSY REALITY OF NUCLEAR FUEL REPROCESSING (pg 37)
Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.




For a close examination of the actual state of global processing programs see the work of the International Panel of Fissile Materials' work. Makhijani draws on it, and it is available for download in full here:

February 2010
Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status
http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/rr08.pdf

Research Report 8 International Panel on Fissile Materials
Thomas B. Cochran, Harold A. Feiveson, Walt Patterson, Gennadi Pshakin, M.V. Ramana, Mycle Schneider, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Frank von Hippel
www.fissilematerials.org

Kris,

It was a simple request. I don't want any "cut and paste" from
somebody's report.

I want you to do your own homework. It's a simple request.

Tell me "which reactions" give you more radioactivity?

Can you do that or are you just some "cut and paste" idiot-savant?

It's like in science courses. Even if you write down the correct
answer, you don't get credit. Show your work!!!

You answer is unacceptable!!

Arjun is talking about what it takes to burn up 100K metric tons
of Uranium. That is NOT the question I asked you.

Evidently, you can't figure out the correct question without being
spoon-fed. I guess I should have expected that.

Still, you say that you get 6X the radioactive waste with reprocessing
as with once-through.

Again, tell me which reactions create the extra 5X in radioactivity.

Simple question. Let's see if your simple mind can fathom it.

PamW

Interested readers should also see:
http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/resource-database/reprocessing-and-nuclear.pdf

As noted by both Makhijani and the UCS, the original source for the conclusion regarding volume of waste is found in the Department of Energy Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE/EIS-0396, October 2008, Tables 4.8-5 and 4.8-6, p. 4-138 and 4-139.
TABLE 4.8-5—Comparison of Domestic Programmatic Alternatives for 200 GWe (Annual Impacts at Steady-State Endpoint)
TABLE 4.8-6—Comparison of Programmatic Alternatives for 200 GWe (Cumulative Impacts, 50 Years of Implementation)

If you have a problem with the data, that is who you need to correct. However, as I recall you are a much more enthusiastic supporter of the nuclear folks at DOE than I am. Are you now also rejecting their work?

How about the IPFM paper listed above. Are you disputing the work of this team as well as DOE?
http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/pages_us_en/about/members/members.php



As to your red herring, I'm sorry, but trying to make this about me is a transparent ploy to divert the topic since you've yet again been shown to be full of nonsense.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Interested readers should also see:
http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/resource-database/reprocessing-and-nuclear.pdf

As noted by both Makhijani and the UCS, the original source for the conclusion regarding volume of waste is found in the Department of Energy Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE/EIS-0396, October 2008, Tables 4.8-5 and 4.8-6, p. 4-138 and 4-139.
TABLE 4.8-5—Comparison of Domestic Programmatic Alternatives for 200 GWe (Annual Impacts at Steady-State Endpoint)
TABLE 4.8-6—Comparison of Programmatic Alternatives for 200 GWe (Cumulative Impacts, 50 Years of Implementation)

If you have a problem with the data, that is who you need to correct. However, as I recall you are a much more enthusiastic supporter of the nuclear folks at DOE than I am. Are you now also rejecting their work?

How about the IPFM paper listed above. Are you disputing the work of this team as well as DOE?
http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/pages_us_en/about/members/members.php



As to your red herring, I'm sorry, but trying to make this about me is a transparent ploy to divert the topic since you've yet again been shown to be full of nonsense.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

No of course you aren't; you are still just using a red herring to try and divert attention from your screw-up.

Interested readers should also see:
http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/resource-database/reprocessing-and-nuclear.pdf

As noted by both Makhijani and the UCS, the original source for the conclusion regarding volume of waste is found in the Department of Energy Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE/EIS-0396, October 2008, Tables 4.8-5 and 4.8-6, p. 4-138 and 4-139.
TABLE 4.8-5—Comparison of Domestic Programmatic Alternatives for 200 GWe (Annual Impacts at Steady-State Endpoint)
TABLE 4.8-6—Comparison of Programmatic Alternatives for 200 GWe (Cumulative Impacts, 50 Years of Implementation)

If you have a problem with the data, that is who you need to correct. However, as I recall you are a much more enthusiastic supporter of the nuclear folks at DOE than I am. Are you now also rejecting their work?

How about the IPFM paper listed above. Are you disputing the work of this team as well as DOE?
http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/pages_us_en/about/members/members.php


As to your red herring, I'm sorry, but trying to make this about me is still a transparent ploy to divert the topic since you've yet again been shown to be full of nonsense.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.