REPROCESSING 101
A Better Solution
Nuclear reprocessing is a dangerous, dirty,
and expensive solution to a “problem” that turns
out not to be such a problem after all.
For decades now, the U.S. has been trying to develop permanent
storage for nuclear waste. In the meantime, tens of thousands
of tons of waste have accumulated near nuclear reactors around
the country.
Temporary on-site
storage is much cheaper and safer than reprocessing. |
The companies that own those reactors,
stuck with a large bill for “temporary” storage,
have sued the U.S. government based on its promise to build
a permanent storage facility. When Congress learned in
2005 that it could cost as much as $500 million per year
to settle these claims, it asked the Department of Energy
to explore other solutions to the storage problem.
These solutions, funded by Congress under the names Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative, prominently include reprocessing.
“Thus,” says Princeton physicist
Frank von Hippel, the “interest in the United States
in reprocessing is very much entangled in the perceived urgency
of starting to move spent fuel off of reactor sites.” MORE at
page 6.
Now that the dangers and difficulties
of reprocessing have become apparent, though, it’s
time to go back to the idea that inspired the lawsuits
in the first place: on-site storage.
Many in the nuclear community agree that on-site storage
is the cheapest and safest interim solution. For example,
the Union of Concerned Scientists says,
“[T]here is no spent fuel storage
crisis that warrants such a drastic change in course
[as reprocessing]. Hardened interim storage of spent
fuel in dry casks is an economically viable and secure
option for at least fifty years….” MORE
Certainly on-site storage is less expensive than reprocessing.
Compare the $500 million per year cost of on-site storage
that Congress was trying to evade with the proposed budget
just to explore reprocessing in 2009: $900 million.
Analysts differ on the overall difference
in cost between reprocessing and on-site storage. According
to Princeton’s
von Hippel, “The reprocessing option would be 4 – 8
times more costly…than on-site dry-cask storage for
up to 50 years.” MORE at
page 29.
Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government
offers a more conservative estimate: reprocessing would
cost nearly twice as much as on-site storage. And the Congressional
Budget Office, known for its neutrality, says that
reprocessing would cost 25% more than on-site storage.
Though these estimates differ, it is at least clear that
reprocessing would cost billions more per year than on-site
storage. At the same time, reprocessing offers no obvious
advantages.
Initially, critics of on-site storage raised safety issues,
but these objections have been laid to rest. In a recent
Scientific American article, Princeton physicist von Hippel
writes:
“I would argue that keeping older
fuel produced by [nuclear reactors] in dry storage casks
represents a negligible addition to the existing nuclear
hazard to the surrounding population. Terrorists intent
on doing harm might attempt to puncture such a cask using,
say, an antitank weapon of the engine of a crashing aircraft,
but under most circumstances only a small mass
of radioactive fuel fragments would be scattered about
a limited area."
Reprocessing solves
a “problem” that turns out not to be
such a problem after all. |
In contrast, if the coolant in the nearby reactor were cut
off, its fuel would overheat and begin releasing huge quantities
of vaporized fission products within minutes. And if the
water were lost in a storage pool containing spent fuel,
the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods would be heated up
to ignition temperatures within hours.
Seen in this light, dry storage casks
look pretty benign.” MORE
Thus, given all the negative consequences of reprocessing,
it would be simpler, cheaper, and much safer to pay for continued
on-site storage of nuclear waste, while redoubling efforts
to create a safe, permanent storage facility.
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