Reprocessing is insanely EXPENSIVE, mostly because of a premature effort to rush new, untested technologies into commercial use.

The Bottom Line

In 1996, the National Academies estimated the cost of creating a reprocessing system that could dispose of significant quantities of domestic nuclear waste. As the Institute of Policy Studies summarized the National Academies conclusion,

“[D]eployment and operation of a system that would be extensive enough to have a significant effect on the disposal of just domestic United States…spent fuel could cost as much as 500 billion dollars, in 1992 dollars, and take some 150 years to implement. The cost of such a plan would exceed $700 billion in 2007 dollars. [Further,] the system envisioned in the 1996 National Academies study was not as extensive as the administration’s current plan for [reprocessing.]” MORE at 17

Incremental Cost

It’s also interesting to look at just the “incremental cost” of reprocessing, over and above the cost of simply storing nuclear waste.

In a recent article in Scientific American, Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel discussed the National Academies estimate of the incremental cost of reprocessing 62,000 tons of waste (the amount that will accumulate in the U.S. by the end of this year):

“[The cost would be] ’no less than $50 billion and easily could be over $100 billion’…. These numbers would have to be doubled to deal with the entire amount of spent fuel that existing U.S. reactors are expected to discharge during their lifetimes.” MORE

Thus, von Hippel estimates that the incremental cost of reprocessing anticipated nuclear waste would be double $50 to $100 billion, or $100 to $200 billion. Elsewhere von Hippel notes that “U.S. nuclear utilities have made it clear that these extra costs would have to be funded by the federal government.” MORE at 3.

Note also that in 2007 the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, a truly neutral party, gave the following testimony on the incremental cost of reprocessing before a Senate Committee:

“The cost of reprocessing would be at least 25 percent greater than the cost of direct disposal.” MORE at 3

“Fast Reactors” Cost Even More

Not only is reprocessing much more expensive than direct disposal of nuclear waste; there is also a hefty price tag for using reprocessed fuel. That’s because, in order to use this fuel, we need to design and build a whole new generation of “fast reactors.”

According to Princeton’s von Hippel in Scientific American, fast reactors have “proved to be much more costly to build and troublesome to operate than expected.” MORE The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation notes that the “United States, France, Japan, Britain, and Germany all shut down fast reactors after years of safety problems and cost overruns.” MORE

The Institute for Policy Studies elaborates:

“[Reprocessing] advocates conveniently ignore the fact that the experience with fast reactors is marked with failure. Over the past 50 years, at least 15 ‘fast’ reactors have been closed due to costs and accidents in the U.S., France, Germany, England, and Japan. There have been two fast reactor fuel meltdowns in the United States, including a mishap near Detroit in the 1960’s. Russia operates the remaining fast reactor, but it has experienced 15 serious fires in 23 years.” MORE

Not surprisingly, it would cost a lot to get these troublesome fast reactors to work properly. Princeton’s von Hippel says that the U.S. would need to build 40 to 75 1,000 megawatt fast reactors to reprocess nuclear waste at the rate it is currently being produced. Since developing the fast reactors would cost $1 billion to $2 billion more per reactor than current nuclear reactors, von Hippel estimates that the total tab would be $40 billion to $150 billion, in addition to the $144 to $290 billion incremental cost of reprocessing fuel rather than disposing of it directly. MORE

Note also that cost estimates for nuclear construction are usually much lower than actual costs. The Institute for Policy Studies points out that, of the 100 nuclear power plants that exist in the U.S., the federal Department of Energy has calculated that:

“the actual costs of 75 of the currently operating nuclear power plants in the United States were more than triple, in constant year dollars, the estimated costs of the plants. The actual costs of some individual plants were five or more times higher than their estimated costs.” MORE at 33.

“No Economic Justification”

In 2007, the National Academies again addressed the feasibility of reprocessing, noting that fast reactor technology is still in the early stages of development. The National Academies panel concluded that because “significant technical problems remain to be solved,” none of the technologies currently being proposed “is at a stage of reliability and understanding that would justify commercial-scale construction….” MORE at 23.

The Institute for Policy Studies makes the same point even more emphatically:

“[N]one of the necessary technologies and processes have been shown to be technically feasible and commercially viable at a medium or large scale and most have not even been shown to be feasible at laboratory-scale.” MORE

As a result, the 2007 National Academies report concluded:

“[T]here is no economic justification for going forward with this program at anything approaching a commercial scale.” MORE at 5.

Interestingly, the nuclear industry has reached the same conclusion. A 2007 report by the Keystone Center, underwritten by the industry’s lobbying body and various utility companies, concluded that because “[a] reprocessing-based fuel cycle system is many times more expensive than a once-through fuel cycle system,”

“reprocessing of spent fuel will not be cost effective in the foreseeable future.” MORE at 82-3.

“Not surprisingly,” reports the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, “the nuclear industry hasn’t committed any money to fund reprocessing or to deploy fast neutron reactors.” MORE