Issue 19: Should the United States Reprocess Spent Nuclear Fuel?

Issue 19

Should the United States Reprocess Spent Nuclear Fuel?

Authors: Phillip J. Finck and Matthew Bunn

1. (2pts) Definitions. List the important new terms and concepts used by the author. Define terms with which you were not familiar. Circle those that you think need clarification and discussion. Minimum 4.

a. nuclear waste – created when uranium and plutonium atoms are split during the process of nuclear fission, which creates energy at nuclear power plants. Also created when the same are used for medicine and nuclear weapons. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, we have 52,000 tons of spent reactor fuel and 91 million gallons of waste from nuclear weapon protection.

b. nuclear reprocessing – the process of separating and recycling unused fuel from spent fuel and thereby reducing the amount of waste and extending the supply of fuel.

c. Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – a treaty that went into force in 1970 and caused the U.S. “policy not to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and thereby to limit the availability of bomb-grade material.” (p. 332) This has caused nuclear waste to accumulate.

d. onerous – “having legal obligations that outweigh the advantages” (Merrim-Webster Dictionary Online)

2. (4pts) Summary. In your own words, summarize the themes and key points developed in this chapter, article, or section of an assigned book. Write as if you were the author telling another educated person what you were trying to say in the assigned piece. In this section, do not give your opinion. Present the arguments and themes of the assigned author.

Phillip J. Finck, from the Statement Before the House Committee on Science at the Hearing on Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing on June 16, 2005, said that by exploiting our spent nuclear fuel, the United States can reduce our nuclear waste, increase our energy supply, and reduce carbon emissions and nuclear waste.

Finck states that the capacity of the Yucca Mountain will reach the capacity of 70,000 by 2010 and if nuclear energy grows at a rate of just 1.8% per year, we will reach the full capacity of the Yucca Mountain by 2030. Space will remain limited, because of this; we need to reprocess our fuel in order to minimize the amount of waste we are putting aside.

Spent nuclear fuel consists of 93% uranium, 1% plutonium, less than 1% minor actinides, and 5% fission products. The uranium can be separated from the other products and be disposed of as low-level waste or used later. The fission products are potentially useable in weapons but are highly radioactive. There are three isotopes, Pu241, Am241, and Np237 that require 100,000 to 1 million years that will need to be placed in a repository. The fission products, cesium and strontium, need to be cooled off before being placed in the repository as they are incredibly hot.

As the time scale is so large, we have three options for how to handle our spent fuel: (1) the once-through fuel cycle wherein it is stored in a safe geographic environment for that time, (2) the limited recycle wherein the uranium is stored for future use and the other products are either used or stored for decay, or (3) the closed fuel cycle wherein we isolate the uranium for future use, destroy the isotopes, and decrease the hazardous amount of material needed to store.

This process of recycling fuel will cost more, but will end in an overall less amount of radioactive material needed to be stored and dealt with for future generations.

Matthew Bunn, from his testimony before the same committee on the same day, believes that the United States does not need to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, the costs are too high, and we would run the risk of increased available tools for terrorists.

Reprocessing is expensive and “increases the cost of spent fuel management by more than 80%.” (p. 341) Thus, it increases the final cost to the consumer or to the tax payers, who are really the same. France and Japan have reached similar conclusions.

The fact that the plutonium, whether high or low grade, could be used as bomb material leaves us at risk. By having to process and ship the plutonium, we put ourselves at an unnecessary risk that it would fall into the wrong hands.

We are using diplomacy to deter other countries to stop their nuclear proliferation policies, including Iran and North Korea, and allies like Taiwan and South Korea. They had secret weapons programs that were closely involved with the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the past. For the United States to do exactly what we are asking other countries to not do is going to hinder our efforts for a safer world.

Reprocessing nuclear fuel is dangerous. Significant accidents have already happened in the world at reprocessing plants, including Khystym, and Russian and France plants. There has been no objective study as to the safety of reprocessing, but processing radioactive fuel with volatile chemicals does not seem safer than leaving spent fuel within casks.

Bunn believes that the Yucca Mountain’s estimated capacity is too low. In fact, he claims that there has not been a conclusive study performed about the actual maximum that the mountain can contain.

He claims that the energy to be harvested from spent nuclear fuel is not substantial enough to counter the cost it requires to extract the valuable resources. And we can retrieve our uranium resources for cheaper than we would to get it from reprocessing. It’s just not economically feasible or advisable right now. We currently do not have the technology to make it feasible or cost-effective. By placing our spent fuel in a repository, we save that available fuel for future generations to make use of and to use to their advantage with more advanced extracting technology.

Nuclear waste is accumulating. Currently, nuclear power plants are storing their waste in large, earthquake proof casks that are open to the air and allow the heat to be released. Over time, the waste becomes less radioactive. However, this process takes millions of years. An alternative to waiting is using fast-neutron reactors that would expose the waste to neutrons from particle accelerators and speed up the radioactive decay process.

A disposal site has been researched and decided upon, but not yet developed. It’s called the Yucca Mountain and it’s in Nevada. The capacity of the site is limited by legislation to 70,000 metric tons of waste by 2010 and the expected capacity of the site is 120,000 metric tons. Environmental activists are strongly opposed to such an idea, and in 2005, reports of faulty research have spurned hope that the site’s approval would be delayed.

3. (3pts) Creative Reaction and Integration. Record some of your own ideas that came to you as you were reading and thinking about the issue or issues the author is discussing. Formulate these in well-written sentences, develop them as best you can, and relate them to the author’s discussion and possibly to other readings and course themes.

Nuclear fuel seems not to be clean and safe, as it was claimed to be in Issue 12. Sure, no carbon is released and there is no air pollution from it. But, we end up having nuclear waste that will not degrade for a million years. That’s a huge price to pay for energy!

They act as though they are leaving a gift of energy to the future generations. No one can predict the future, but if we move to clean and sustainable energy such as hydrogen, solar and wind power, there is high doubt that a mountain full of nuclear waste is going to be considered a gift.

4. (2pts) Opinion – Not graded, 2 points awarded if completed.

Why not shoot spend nuclear fuel into space? They have eliminated shooting it into the sun, but why not send it towards Jupiter or outer space? Would terrorists actually have the capability to retrieve such highly dangerous material? I doubt it. They barely have the ability to retrieve it from plutonium stockpiles.

Nuclear energy seems more and more unreliable and unsafe. There are benefits, but the costs are higher than the benefits can possible be. I say we move to hydrogen, solar, and wind power. Let the Earth remain green and become greener. Let us and other life forms be safe from nuclear energy and weapons.