NYT Matt Wald on GAO review of DOE work on nuclear fuel recycling

[kristopher]

Have you heard that reprocessing or "recycling" spent nuclear fuel is the way to get rid of the tens of thousands of tons of toxic spent nuclear fuel? "Don't worry", nuclear proponents will tell you, "nuclear waste isn't waste, it is a valuable fuel resource. Right now we need to focus on building more nuclear plants."

Well, another nuclear myth bites the dust...

A Long, Long Road to Recycling Nuclear Fuel
By MATTHEW L. WALD

The question of what to do with spent nuclear fuel from civilian power reactors has stirred renewed interest in reprocessing — that is, chopping up the fuel, retrieving materials that can power a reactor and possibly recovering the most troublesome waste products so they can be broken up in the reactor into easier-to-handle elements.

But the Energy Department, which is supposed to is evaluate different ways that the used fuel could be recycled, has a long way to go, according to the Government Accountability Office. In a report released on Wednesday, the auditors noted that the Department of Energy had listed a huge number of potential ways to do the job and classified the methods according to the degree of promise that each held. Still, the department’s evaluation does not indicate the state of technical progress for the many technologies that would be needed, the report said.

And the Energy Department has not coordinated its work with the companies that run reactors to ensure that the technologies it evaluates are actually of commercial interest, the Government Accountability Office said.

...“No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments — including advances in reprocess and recycle technologies — have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer,’’ the report said....

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/a-long-long-road-to-recycling-nuclear-fuel/?ref=matthewlwald