Hi Rod,
Interestingly I've just published an article about the "waste issue" at a Czech magazine here: http://
neviditelnypes.lidovky.cz...p_ekonomika_wag
I will post a summary.
regards,
Ondrej
Title - Is the spent fuel the Achilles heel of nuclear energy?
First, the waste is indeed a strong side of nuclear energy, as compared to coal with its CO2, SO2, NOx, arsenic, cadmium, mercury etc. emissions, including tons of radioactive uranium and thorium yearly dispersed from a typical coal plant.
Second, 95-97% of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) can be recycled, and it indeed is as a MOX fuel now [1]. Advanced reactors such as IFR [6] or MSR [8], produce only fission products a a waste. Fission products need to be shielded from environment for hundreds of ears only, which is a simple engineering task.
Third, fission products are rare materials with unique properties and many applications in medicine [14], industry [15] and sanitation [12], therefore a valuable stuff. Platinum group metals [10] are indeed very valuable, Rhodium trades for nearly 10x the gold price.
Using breeder reactors[2], current reserves are adequate for thousands of years. If we utilize uranium from seawater, there is energy enough for billions of years several times the total energy consumption of humanity [5]. Uranium from sea costs about 4x the current price, [4,99].
Summary - problems of "nuclear waste" is just a political one, technological solutions are already developed. Not only they eliminate the waste issue, they also provide energy resource which will last for any conceivable future.
References are in the original article, [99] is http://npc.sarov.ru/english/
dige...ppendix8p1.html
Thanks for the pointers to the Heritage Foundation article. The comments there (and here) are a veritable who-who of nuclear issues, and an intriguing, fascinating read!
Thank you much!
Kelly
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