Nuclear headache: What to do with 65,000 tons of spent fuel?

[IDemo]

In a blow to the nuclear energy industry, a federal appeals court on Friday threw out a rule allowing plants to store spent nuclear fuel onsite for decades after they've closed, and ordered regulators to study the risks involved with that storage -- 65,000 tons now spread across the country, and growing at 2,000 tons a year.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission "apparently has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository," the unanimous ruling stated. "If the government continues to fail in its quest to establish one, then SNF (spent nuclear fuel) will seemingly be stored on site at nuclear plants on a permanent basis. The Commission can and must assess the potential environmental effects of such a failure."

Nuclear plants have been storing spent fuel onsite for decades and the NRC recently said, barring a repository, they may continue to do so even after they shut down.

That regulation was challenged by New York and other Northeast states, as well as environmentalists.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/08/12127578-nuclear-headache-what-to-do-with-65000-tons-of-spent-fuel?lite

[sabbat hunter]

1. best thing to do with it is

reprocess it. what comes out use as fuel, medical purposes.

[TheWraith]

3. Exactly what they do in Europe.

The US is simply too stingy: it's cheaper to store it and buy fresh fuel.

[bananas]

16. Fuel "recycling" a myth; Less than 4% of French nuclear fuel "recycled"

http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/2010/09/fuel_recycling_a_myth_a_f.html

Fuel "recycling" a myth, a French report involuntarily demonstrates
By Yves Marignac on September 8, 2010 1:08 PM | 0 Comments | 1 TrackBack

This is the third in a series of four posts on the openness of the French "closed" fuel cycle

French industry and government assertions about the "closed" character of the nuclear fuel "cycle" are misrepresentating the facts. This is the main finding of the High Committee for transparency and information on nuclear safety (Haut comité pour la transparence et l'information sur la sécurité nucléaire - HCTISN), which on 12 July 2010 published its conclusions on "the transparency of the fuel cycle management".

The independent Committee was created by the 2006 Act on Nuclear Transparency, comprises operators, state authorities, trade-unions and environmental NGOs and advises Government and Parliament on nuclear issues. The report had been commissioned by the Minister of Environment and the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Options (Office parlementaire d'évaluation des choix scientifiques et technologiques - OPECST) and was triggered by a controversy in October 2009 about French uranium exports to Russia. A TV documentary had shown that reprocessed uranium was sent to Russia for storage with little realistic perspective to be used, contradicting official assertions about the recycling of uranium and its benefits. The end of this uranium waste trade, confirmed by AREVA in May 2010, was reported by Greenpeace as effective as of 11 July 2010. Incidentally, the HCTISN report was presented to the Minister of environment the very next day.

Although the report centers on this issue, providing unreleased public information on the long-standing natural, enriched, reprocessed and depleted uranium trade between France and Russia, it also develops a broader analysis of the nuclear materials of the French nuclear fuel chain, with a focus on current practices and future prospects for the reuse of uranium and plutonium.

<snip>

http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/2010/09/less_than_4_of_french_nuc.html

Less than 4% of French nuclear fuel "recycled", NGOs calculate
By Yves Marignac on September 8, 2010 1:28 PM
| 2 TrackBacks

This is the fourth in a series of four posts on the openness of the French "closed" fuel cycle

<snip>

The note proposes two ways to assess the level of effective recycling of "re-usable" materials to be found in the French fuel chain. The first one is based on the quantity of fuel unloaded (see line (2) in the following table) representing 100%, and the share of materials contained in that spent fuel that is effectively reused, namely as separated plutonium in MOX fuel (see (4)), and as the re-enriched part of reprocessed uranium in re-enriched uranium (REU) fuel (see (3)). The note concludes that 3.9% of the content of spent fuel is currently re-used (see (6)), a number that directly compares to the 96% figure claimed by the industry. The planned increase in reprocessing and recycling flows as of 2010 could only bring this, theoretically, to 7.3%.

The note further introduces a calculation based on the primary quantity of natural uranium used in the fuel cycle (see (1)), as 100%, which allows for taking into account the use of depleted uranium for MOX fuel (see (5)). The level of re-use of primary material (see (7)) declines to 1.7% under past years conditions, and 2.6% under projected conditions as of 2010. Additional calculations based on available data show that the average level of recycling over the period 1994-2009 is 2% for the recycling of spent fuel and 1.2% for the recycling of natural uranium.

<snip>

Parts 1 and 2 of that series:

http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/2010/09/france_official_plan_admi.html

France: Official plan admits problems with management of uranium and plutonium
By Yves Marignac on September 8, 2010 12:32 PM
| 2 TrackBacks

This is the first in a series of four posts on the openness of the French "closed" fuel cycle

<snip>

http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/2010/09/report_long-term_plans_to.html

Report: Long-term plans to develop an FBR based plutonium economy in France is not demonstrated
By Yves Marignac on September 8, 2010 12:49 PM
| 1 TrackBack

This is the second in a series of four posts on the openness of the French "closed" fuel cycle

Official plans to manage French uranium and plutonium stockpiles over the long term were dealt a new blow when a scientific committee expressed doubts on conclusions drawn from unsupported scenarios. The report by the National committee for the assessment of research and studies on the management of radioactive materials and wastes (Commission nationale d'évaluation des recherches et études relatives à la gestion des matières et des déchets radioactifs - CNE), published on 16 June 2010, comes shortly after the revised edition of the National management scheme for radioactive materials and wastes, PNGMDR, stressed the need for considering the possibility that long term plans to re-use accumulated nuclear materials fail.

<snip>

[TheWraith]

21. Ah, I see the propaganda train has arrived.

Clearly I hit a nerve.

[bananas]

18. MIT's "most important recommendation": don't reprocess, it's a "goofy idea"

Bush wanted to begin reprocessing with his GNEP program, it was "a goofy idea" according to MIT, the National Academy of Sciences, the Federation of American Scientists, and just about everyone else. After the National Academy of Sciences report came out, Congress defunded it.

MIT's "most important recommendation" in their 2003 report "The Future of Nuclear Power":

Thus our most important recommendation is:

For the next decades, government and industry in the U.S. and elsewhere
should give priority to the deployment of the once-through fuel cycle,
rather than the development of more expensive closed fuel cycle
technology involving reprocessing and new advanced thermal or fast
reactor technologies.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/index.html

John Deutsch, one of the main authors of the MIT report, called the GNEP reprocessing plan "a goofy idea":

A telling point is that almost no independent analysts, that is, those not working for the Department of Energy, have anything good to say about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In the Greenwire article cited above, Deutsch called GNEP a “goofy idea.” Even overall supporters of nuclear power, like Ernest Moniz of MIT (Moniz was, along with Deutsch, cochairman of the panel that wrote the very influential MIT study, The Future of Nuclear Power), oppose GNEP if for no other reason than it is premature. It may be a good idea at the end of the 21st Century, but not now. Even the nuclear power industry is at best tepid in its support, worrying that GNEP is a diversion from the immediate problem of a geological repository. Recent questions from members of Congress highlights another concern: even potential supporters of the idea of reprocessing are wary of entrusting the gargantuan technical task to the Department of Energy because DOE has shown repeatedly and consistently that it is incapable of managing such complex projects.

http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclear_power_and_fuel_cycle/gnep.html?formAction=297&contentId=525

In 2007, the National Academy of Science came to a similar conclusion, as reported at the Federation of American Scientists blog:

National Academy of Science Report Calls for Putting the Brakes on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Program.

This afternoon, a committee of the National Research Council, a research arm of the National Academy of Science, issued a report that is extremely critical of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, an administration plan to restart separating plutonium from used commercial nuclear reactor fuel, something the United States has not done for three decades. I have argued that the goals of GNEP, while scientifically possible and perhaps someday economically justifiable, are decades premature. I am relieved to discover that the committee report comes to essentially the same conclusion.

<snip>

While all 17 members of the committee concluded that the GNEP R&D program, as currently planned, should not be pursued, 15 of the members said that the less-aggressive reprocessing research program that preceded the current one should be. However, if DOE returns to the earlier program, called the Advance Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), it should not commit to a major demonstration or deployment of reprocessing unless there is a clear economic, national security, or environmental reason to do so.

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/10/national_academy_of_science_re.php

Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth:

"This decision to halt the reprocessing EIS is celebrated by those who know the technical absurdity, proliferation risks and high costs involved with pursuit of commercial reprocessing of radioactive spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. We thank Secretary (Steven) Chu for taking this important step," said Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth. "The decision to cancel ... is a clear victory for the environment of South Carolina and taxpayers but a big setback to narrow special interests who had hoped to profit from a commercial reprocessing facility being built at the Savannah River Site."

http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/0630GNEP

Physicist Frank von Hippel:

April, 2008

Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth
Plans are afoot to reuse spent reactor fuel in the U.S. But the advantages of the scheme pale in comparison with its dangers
By Frank N. von Hippel

<snip>

It is exactly this failed reactor type that the DOE now proposes to develop and deploy—but with its core reconfigured to be a net plutonium burner rather than a breeder. The U.S. would have to build between 40 and 75 1,000-megawatt reactors of this type to be able to break down transuranics at the rate they are being generated in the nation’s 104 conventional reactors. If each of the new sodium-cooled reactors cost $1 billion to $2 billion more than one of its water-cooled cousins of the same capacity, the federal subsidy necessary would be anywhere from $40 billion to $150 billion, in addition to the $100 billion to $200 billion required for building and operating the recycling infrastructure. Given the U.S. budget deficit, it seems unlikely that such a program would actually be carried through.

If a full-scale reprocessing plant were constructed (as the DOE until recently was proposing to do by 2020) but the sodium-cooled reactors did not get built, virtually all the separated transuranics would simply go into indefinite storage. This awkward situation is exactly what befell the U.K., where the reprocessing program, started in the 1960s, has produced about 80 tons of separated plutonium, a legacy that will cost tens of billions of dollars to dispose of safely.

<snip>

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuel-recycling

[bananas]

19. Richard Garwin explains why reprocessing neither solves the waste problem nor reduces safety risks

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/reprocessing-isnt-the-answer

Reprocessing isn't the answer
By Richard L. Garwin | 6 August 2009

Article Highlights
* With the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain seemingly dead, reprocessing again is being proffered as a way to deal with U.S. nuclear waste.
* But the reality is that reprocessing neither solves the waste problem nor reduces safety risks.
* Research should continue into next-generation reactors that can burn spent fuel, but until then, dry casks and repositories must be pursued.

<snip>

Some commercial interests argue that such spent nuclear fuel should be reprocessed (or "recycled," which is the industry's current term) into fresh fuel. They claim that this will greatly reduce the need for mined uranium and for underground repositories, and is, in any case, desirable--just as is all recycling of material such as paper, glass, aluminum, and steel. In reality, however, recycling spent nuclear fuel from U.S. reactors wouldn't solve any problems and would add additional cost and hazard.

In my congressional testimony, speeches, and published articles, I have provided technical details and abundant references to explain my opposition to reprocessing of LWR fuel back into fresh fuel as is practiced in France and a few other countries. France has decades of experience in technically successful reprocessing of its LWR spent fuel. It currently obtains one usable mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel element, a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxides, from every seven LWR spent fuel elements. But aside from the almost 1-percent plutonium in the spent fuel and the 94-percent uranium 238, the other 5 percent of mass (called "fission products&quot is removed and melted together with glass into a vitrified product that is encased in welded stainless steel canisters. These are stored at the French reprocessing plant at La Hague, awaiting the availability some decades hence of a mined geologic repository. In fact, for all the U.S. delays and roadblocks, it's far ahead of France in planning for a permanent repository.

In truth, reprocessing doesn't eliminate or even significantly reduce the need for a repository, as demonstrated by the authoritative presentations of Idaho National Laboratory Associate Director Phillip J. Finck, who has worked in the French program and is now in charge of a major portion of the U.S. government nuclear energy research program. According to Finck, Yucca Mountain could accommodate only about 10 percent more spent MOX fuel and vitrified fission products as produced at La Hague than it could normal spent fuel. This is because after four years in a reactor MOX fuel is much hotter than normal spent fuel, and so fewer spent MOX fuel elements can be accommodated in the same space as ordinary and cooler spent fuel (also called UOX, for its uranium-oxide content).

What's the long-term plan then? Well, there is no plan, but there are proposals. One of the more foolish was the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), advanced by the Bush administration and abandoned by Obama. It planned on building a U.S. reprocessing plant to recycle spent UOX into MOX fuel not for light water reactors, but for a new generation of fast reactors that would, if they were built, burn up the plutonium and the so-called higher actinides such as neptunium, americium, and curium in spent fuel. This would have had the advantage of reducing the long-persisting decay heat from spent MOX, which would make it simpler to store it in an underground repository.

<snip>

Reprocessing of LWR fuel also fails to save uranium, a common argument in favor of recycle. Although 1 percent of the fuel is plutonium and can be burned as MOX; recycling all LWR fuel, including reuse of uranium, would save at most 20 percent of the necessary supply of raw uranium ore. Analysis shows this isn't worth doing unless the cost of natural uranium rose to something like $750-$1,000 per kilogram. Its current price, however, is much lower, on the order of $70 per kilogram. Even at a price of $750 per kilogram, reprocessing would only be marginally preferable.

<snip>

[bananas]

20. Robert Alvarez: The National Academy of Sciences rejected reprocessing in 1996 and 2007

Robert Alvarez was a Senior Advisor in the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration:

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/nuclear_recycling_fails_the_test

Nuclear Recycling Fails the Test
July 2, 2008 · By Robert Alvarez. Edited by Miriam Pemberton

The debate over nuclear power is heating up, along with the planet. Can nuclear fuel recycling be part of the mix? Not a chance.

<snip>

In order to recycle uranium and plutonium in power plants, spent fuel has to be treated to chemically separate these elements from other highly radioactive byproducts. As it chops and dissolves used fuel rods, a reprocessing plant releases about 15 thousand times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power reactors and generates several dangerous waste streams. If placed in a crowded area, a few grams of waste would deliver lethal radiation doses in a matter of seconds. They also pose enduring threats to the human environment for tens of thousands of years.

<snip>

In 2007 the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that “reprocessed uranium currently plays a very minor role in satisfying world uranium requirements for power reactors.” In 2004, about 2 percent of uranium reactor fuel in France came from recycling, and it appears that it now has dwindled to zero. There are several reasons for this.

Uranium, which makes up about 95 percent of spent fuel, cannot be reused in the great majority of reactors without increasing the levels of a key source of energy, uranium 235, from 1 to 4 percent, through a complex and expensive enrichment process.

Reprocessed uranium also contains undesirable elements that make it highly radioactive and reduces the efficiency of the fuel. For instance, the build up of uranium 232 and uranium 234 in spent fuel creates a radiation hazard requiring extraordinary measures to protect workers. Levels of uranium-236 in used fuel impede atom splitting; and to compensate for this “poison, recycled uranium has to undergo costly “over-enrichment.” Contaminants in reprocessed uranium also foul up enrichment and processing facilities, as well as new fuel. Once it is recycled in a reactor, larger amounts of undesirable elements build up – increasing the expense of reuse, storage and disposal. Given these problems, it’s no surprise that DOE plans include disposal of future reprocessed uranium in landfills, instead of recycling.

<snip>

As a senior energy adviser in the Clinton administration, I recall attending a briefing in 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences on the feasibility of recycling nuclear fuel. I'd been intrigued by the idea because of its promise to eliminate weapons-usable plutonium and to reduce the amount of waste that had to be buried, where it could conceivably seep into drinking water at some point in its multimillion-year-long half-lives.

But then came the Academy's unequivocal conclusion: the idea was supremely impractical. It would cost up to $500 billion in 1996 dollars and take 150 years to accomplish the transmutation of plutonium and other dangerous long-lived radioactive toxins. Ten years later the idea remains as costly and technologically unfeasible as it was in the 1990s. In 2007 the Academy once again tossed cold water on the Bush administration’s effort to jump start nuclear recycling by concluding that “there is no economic justification for going forward with this program at anything approaching a commercial scale.”

<snip>

[PamW]

23. You left something out...

Quoting:

But then came the Academy's unequivocal conclusion: the idea was supremely impractical. It would cost up to $500 billion in 1996 dollars and take 150 years to accomplish the transmutation of plutonium and other dangerous long-lived radioactive toxins.

Sure, it costs a lot of money and takes a 150 years to repeatedly recycle that fuel through the reactors.

So why do it? Two reasons. That's the only way you get rid of the long-lived isotopes; or do you prefer to store them? The other reason?

You get 150 years of electric energy doing it!!!

PamW

[SoutherDem]

4. How far can it be processed?

If I understand we can reprocess weapon grade to power plant grade. Power plant grade to medical grade. Is there a level below that? Is there an amount which can't be reprocess. Does the waste get more radioactive with reprocess. In other words will we end up one day with a lesser amount but extremely dangerous?

[PamW]

6. WRONG!!!

First there is no such thing as "weapons grade" spent fuel and "power plant grade" spent fuel. Weapons grade and reactor grade refer to various isotopic mixes of fresh fuel, not spent or reprocessed fuel.

When you reprocess fuel; you remove the fission products, which are the really radioactive materials. So the reprocessed fuel is LESS radioactive, not more radioactive.

Fresh fuel starts out as 3% U-235 and 97% U-238. Spent fuel is about 3% fission products, 1% actinides, and 96% U-238. The only material that is not useful for generating energy is that 3% fission products because that is "nuclear ash". The 1% actinides like Plutonium are already useful as fuel. The 96% that is U-238 can be bred into usable fuel. So 97% of the constituents of spent fuel are reusable. So you remove the 3% that is fission products ( which are also the materials with the bulk of the radioactivity ) and reform the rest back into fuel to be returned to the reactor.

PamW

[SoutherDem]

8. Thanks for the clarification

I had always heard of "grades" thanks for clearing that up.

[bananas]

14. (moved up-thread to post #18) nt

Last edited Tue Jun 12, 2012, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

[bananas]

15. (moved up-thread to post #19) nt

Last edited Tue Jun 12, 2012, 01:13 PM - Edit history (1)

[bananas]

17. (moved up-thread to post #20) nt

[Kolesar]

9. Southern Dem didn't say: "weapons grade" spent fuel

Mizz Cross

[PamW]

22. Let's use some logic...

SouthernDem referred to reprocessing "weapons grade".... specifically quoting

If I understand we can reprocess weapon grade to power plant grade. Power plant grade to medical grade.

Now what type of material do you reprocess? You only reprocess spent fuel. You don't reprocess fresh fuel.

So the "weapons grade" following the word "reprocess" in the quote above has to be an adjective for spent fuel; because that is what one reprocesses. Hence the quote implies that there is a "weapons grade" level of spent fuel.

PamW

[Kolesar]

24. Let's use some "comprehension skills"

SoutherDem didn't say: "weapons grade" spent fuel

The USA bought tons of fission bombs from Russia and turned them into fuel rods for you.

[PamW]

25. WRONG again - you need to follow your own advice.

First, he asked about reprocessing something that was "weapons grade". I gave you the quote above, are you having trouble understanding? However, you only reprocess spent fuel. So if someone is referring to reprocessing something that is "weapons grade", and the only stuff you reprocess is "spent fuel"; that implies that the adjective "weapons grade" is being applied to "spent fuel".

WRONG AGAIN, as always in regards to what the USA purchased from Russia.

Russia had a lot of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) that was used in their warheads. That HEU is mostly U-235. So they took a bunch of depleted uranium which is mostly U-238 and mixed the two together in a ratio such that the resultant mixture was about 3% - 4% U-235 and 96% - 97% U-238. That's the constituency of slightly enriched Light Water Reactor fuel. That "downblended" fuel is what the Russians sold the USA. Contrary to your ERRONEOUS statement above, the Russians did not sell the USA fission bombs. Russia did not sell the USA "weapons grade" uranium. Russia sold the USA a uranium mixture suitable for reactor fuel. The program was called "Megatons to Megawatts" and was run by the US Enrichment Corporation:

http://www.usec.com/russian-contracts/megatons-megawatts

Why do you always seem to have so much trouble with being accurate?

PamW

[SoutherDem]

2. Ship to the red states?

Just joking.

I remember this debate back in the 70's. Who remembers Space:1999 where we were storing it on the Moon.

[RobertEarl]

5. Pyramids

Above ground and plated with something that will last a 1,000 years.

First: Stop making any more.

[PamW]

7. That doesn't solve the problem...

First: Stop making any more
===================

That doesn't solve the problem. So you stop - then what do you do??

When you reprocess / recycle; you are transmuting long-lived waste into short-lived waste - so eventually you have just short lived waste.

The following interview is from PBS's Frontline with nuclear physicist Dr. Charles Till of Argonne National Lab:

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

Q: So they go in, and then those are broken into fission products, or some of it is. Right?

A: Yes.

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

10. Dr. Till?

Is he the one who predicted that Fukushima could blow up?

Cuz, if he did, then he might be worth listening to. All the rest are lying ass mofos who are in it for the money.

Was it Till?

[PamW]

11. WRONG!! It wasn't Dr. Till

WRONG as always!!!

It wasn't Dr. Till that said that Fukushima would blow up.

In fact, Dr. Till has a chapter about Fukushima in his book about the Integral Fast Reactor:

Plentiful Energy

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466384603/ref=s9_simh_bw_p14_d0_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=06J1XCX5JWHS5WSGEMTE&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1365203102&pf_rd_i=283155

Reviewer Peter Ottensmeyer, Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto has this to say:

The book was written after the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe in Japan. Therefore a complete chapter, Chapter 7, is devoted to a discussion of safety of the EBR-II reactor. Detailed characteristics are described for continual non-power-requiring removal of decay heat from the reactor core (the bane of the Fukushima Daiichi and of the Three-Mile-Island reactors), and for reactor shut down without human or automated intervention under conditions of no cooling for the reactor core (the cause of the Chernobyl disaster). The EBR-II reactor at full power was tested under these rather severe conditions in 1986 and passed easily even with deliberately inactivated control rods. Its safety features are a proven fact, not calculated probabilities. Thus this fast-neutron reactor, operating in the U.S.A. from 1964 to 1994, would have avoided the sequellae of all three major nuclear happenings.

This may be of interest from Brave New Climate:

Why Obama should meet Till

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/09/28/why-obama-should-meet-till/

http://www.beyondfossilfools.com/plentiful-energy-the-story-of-the-integral-fast-reactor.html

http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/pdfs/RoadsNotTaken.pdf

PamW

[RobertEarl]

12. Pyramids Part 2

Thinking about this idea a bit more....

When we close all the reactors we can store spent fuel in the cores of those reactors. Then build pyramids over the whole mess.

One day in the future, our grandkids may figure out a way to handle the mess we have left them. Then they can open up the pyramids and exhume our radiated stockpile.

[PamW]

13. BALONEY Part 2

First, all the spent fuel won't fit in the cores of the reactors. Think about it. At any given instant, the cores of the reactors are filled with fuel while the reactor is operating. They maintain that for a year to a year and a half. Then you refuel the reactors. You discharge spent fuel and refill with fresh fuel once again filling the cores.

So it only takes one refueling, and you have more fuel, both fresh and spent; than what fills the reactor cores. The reactors have been refueled many, many times.

How do you think your grandkids are going to figure anything out if you stop all use of nuclear power?

Again, think about it.

It's as if you give your kid a guitar for his birthday, and when he plays it, you get a horrible cacophony.

You then take away the guitar, put it in its case, and lock it away, and tell your kid, "You can have this back when you know how to play it"

Unless the kid has a guitar to play, he's not going to learn to play the guitar.

All you are going to do is saddle the nation / world with a bunch of long-lived waste that our descendents will never figure out what to do with.

PamW