Progress Made in Science of Recycling Nuclear Fuel

Jun 20 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

An Energy Department official said Thursday that new technologies could revive commercial nuclear waste reprocessing in 10 or 20 years, but other experts warned Congress not to embrace the concept too quickly.

Reprocessing is far from cost-effective and the most readily available technologies carry nuclear security risks without corresponding benefits, a researcher from Harvard University and a physicist from New Mexico said at a House science subcommittee hearing.

"Take the time to get the science right," said Roger Hagengruber, a former senior vice president at Sandia National Laboratory who now teaches at the University of New Mexico.

A dozen lawmakers took active part in the hearing, reflecting a growing interest in nuclear fuel recycling as the nuclear industry seeks to build more power plants while the government continues to struggle over management of radioactive waste.

Experts agreed that a repository being developed at Yucca Mountain still would be necessary to hold nuclear waste. But reprocessing could wring more energy out of nuclear fuel rods, reduce volumes of fuel waste and its radioactive toxicity, extending the life of the Nevada site, they said.

Congress has set a 77,000 ton limit for Yucca Mountain, meaning the repository could be filled almost by the time it is opened, they said. More than 40,000 tons already is being stored at plant sites, in pools and hard shell casks.

"I'm supportive of Yucca Mountain, but I don't want us to get to Yucca Two any sooner than we have to," said Rep. David Hobson, R- Ohio, a proponent of fuel reprocessing.

President Carter in 1977 declared a moratorium on nuclear fuel reprocessing to limit weapons-grade plutonium, a reprocessing byproduct. President Reagan reversed course, but U.S. efforts remained dormant.

On Thursday, Robert Shane Johnson, acting director for nuclear science and technology, told the House subcommittee the Energy Department has made "significant progress" in the past several years in researching new fuel treatment technologies.

Johnson said an advanced uranium extraction process could reduce nuclear waste mass and chemically separate the components of spent fuel in a way that reduces the risk of creating weapons-grade materials that pose proliferation risks.

Another technology, pyroprocessing, looks promising to handle fuel from new generations of nuclear reactors, Johnson said.

But challenges loom in moving the technologies out of the laboratory, Johnson said. Retrofitting existing nuclear facilities might not work. Experiments to design new reprocessing plants could begin in about nine years, with commercial operations in about 20 years, he said.

Phillip Finck, deputy associate director of the Argonne National Laboratory, agreed reprocessing holds promise.

But Hagengruber and a second scientist warned Congress against getting excited too soon.

Hagengruber recommended another 10 years of research would allow the government to "make a more enduring and prudent decision. A decision on reprocessing shouldn't outpace the science."

Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate at Harvard, said nuclear waste could be safely kept at reactor sites in dry casks for decades while all options are weighed. Even nuclear waste sent to Yucca Mountain will be retrievable for 50 to 100 years.

"During that time, technology will develop," Bunn said. "There is no need to make this decision in 2007 or in fact anytime in the next few decades."