is recyling nuclear fission's byproducts what its enthusiasts claim?

[kristopher]

It is worth downloading and reading these two papers by the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

France: Thu - May 8th, 2008

...France initiated a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing program to provide plutonium for its nuclear weapons program in Marcoule in 1958. Later, the vision of the rapid introduction of plutonium-fuelled fast-neutron breeder reactors drove the large-scale separation of plutonium for civilian purposes, starting with the opening of the La Hague plant in 1966, financed under the military and civilian budgets of the Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique, CEA). This effort initially was supported broadly by neighboring European countries who contributed to the French fast breeder project and, along with Japan, signed up for French reprocessing services in the 1970s.

Military plutonium separation by France produced an estimated total of about 6 tons of weapon grade plutonium and ceased in 1993. But civilian reprocessing continues. Virtually all other European countries, apart from the United Kingdom, have abandoned reprocessing and the U.K. plans to end its reprocessing within the next decade. France’s last foreign reprocessing customer for commercial fuel is the Netherlands, which has only a single small 34-year-old power-reactor, and Italy, which ceased generating nuclear electricity after the 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident in the Ukraine.

This report looks at the reprocessing experience at France’s Marcoule and La Hague sites. Since commercial reprocessing ended at the Marcoule site in 1997 and its operational history of reprocessing gas-graphite reactor fuel is not very relevant to today’s commercial light water reactor (LWR) reprocessing, the report focuses primarily on the La Hague site.

Since its inception, France’s reprocessing industry has benefited from strong financial, technical and political support. The French experience therefore constitutes a case of reprocessing under optimal conditions. Since reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel does not “close the nuclear fuel cycle”, as is often claimed, but involves at each stage the production of significant waste streams, we treat it as an open “fuel chain” and assess the record of French reprocessing in terms of waste management, radioactive discharges, radiological and health impacts as well as cost.
IPFM Research Report #4:
Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France,
by Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac
http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/rr04.pdf

England: Tue - Jul 8th, 2008
IPFM Research Report #5:
The Legacy of Reprocessing in the United Kingdom, by Martin Forwood
http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/rr05.pdf

[LAGC]

1. Seems like the biggest hurdle is in transporting the waste.

From that first link you posted:

The recycle into MOX fuel of European power-reactor plutonium separated at La Hague results in an average of about two truck shipments of separated plutonium per week from La Hague to the MELOX MOX fabrication plant at Marcoule, over 1000 km away.

Instead of massive centralized reprocessing facilities that involve dangerous transport of radioactive materials, why not just build smaller scale operations right next to the existing nuclear power plants in question? A 5.5 percent premium doesn't seem like a very high price to pay to reclaim all that used fuel -- that only works out to like 0.4 cents per delivered kilowatt.

If we ever getting around to passing a serious carbon tax that greatly ups the price of coal and natural gas, nuclear (even with additional reprocessing costs) would seem to be a real bargain in comparison.

[kristopher]

2. That is certainly not the message of the paper.

Reprocessing is not going to help fission reactors become the energy source the fission fans cheerlead about.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

Cost, safety, waste and proliferation.

[LAGC]

3. I didn't see much in that paper about proliferation.

Although I know the "Union of Concerned Scientists" emphasizes it on their web-site:

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

I guess I'm just not seeing the outrage. I mean, if any state ever sponsored a nuclear act of terrorism, the response would be sure and swift. The deterrent effect of nuclear proliferation would likely mean less wars and violence, not more. I mean, you don't see any nations that have nuclear bombs being invaded, do you? Would have the U.S. invaded Afghanistan or Iraq or bombed Libya if they had nukes? "An armed society makes for a polite society," and all that.

But back to that paper, it seems to mostly just be bitching about how there is more (low-level) waste created by the reprocessing process. I still think its better to have a bit more low-level waste with only a 200-year half-life than a bunch of high-level waste that is radioactive for centuries.

And as for cost and safety, the added 5.5% cost is really insignificant in the scope of things, and modern nuclear reactors are much more safe than models built 40 years ago, in Japan's current case.

[bananas]

4. Yes, the US would have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq or bombed Libya if they had nukes

Do you really think Bush would not have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq if they had a handful of nuclear weapons?
Just look at the disasters the Bush adminstration inflicted on its own citizens, including the response to Katrina.
US nukes did not deter the 9-11 attack, disproving the idea that nuclear weapons are a 100% effective deterrent.
British territory was invaded during the Falklands war, disproving the idea that "you don't see any nations that nuclear bombs being invaded".
India's nuclear weapons didn't stop the Sikh seperatist movement.
It's estimated that deterrence will fail about once every hundred years.
Increased proliferation will increase the frequency of deterrence failure.

[kristopher]

5. France has been doing this since 1958:

VII. Conclusions
....The reprocessing-plutonium use strategy failed, however, as an adequate framework for spent fuel management in France. Large stocks of both spent fuel and of separated plutonium have been the result.
...The separation and use of plutonium in MOX fuel and the re-enriching of reprocessed uranium are both uneconomic activities. This remains the case even in France, which has the most favorable political and industrial conditions.
...there is no clear advantage for the reprocessing option -- either in terms of waste volumes or repository area....
...La Hague is currently the largest man-made source of radioactivity releases to the environment.
...Reprocessing also has significant impacts in terms of safety and security.
...An overall cost-benefit analysis of spent fuel reprocessing in France would find that the economic, environmental, health, safety and security costs clearly outweigh the benefit of minor savings of natural uranium.

Research Report No. 4 International Panel on Fissile Materials
Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France
Mycle Schneider and Yves Marignac
www.fissilematerials.org
April 2008