Nuclear recycling?: Debate over what to do with spent fuel

Nuclear recycling?: Debate over what to do with spent fuel

Aug 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Jennifer Feals Portsmouth Herald, N.H.

As it moves through the license renewal process, seeking to extend its operating license another 20 years -- for a total of 60 years -- NextEra Energy has the potential to store used nuclear fuel on its Seabrook site for the life of the plant and beyond.

But after one use in a reactor, about 95 percent of the material used to produce nuclear fuel still contains energy value, leaving the question of whether that remaining fuel could be reused.

While the recycling of nuclear fuel does take place in other countries, most notably France, the United States does not do so due to economic and national security reasons. Instead, the 104 operating nuclear energy plants around the country store their used fuel on-site.

"Spent fuel can be reprocessed and reused, but it's an issue that has not been really resolved," said Stephen Fan, professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire specializing in mechanical and nuclear engineering. "I think a lot of people feel the safest way is to really find a place to deposit the spent fuel. It can be made into something that is very disruptive, for instance weapons."

While Yucca Mountain in Nevada was originally envisioned as a geological repository storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, it hasn't been approved after more than 20 years of debate. Most recently, the Obama administration announced its intent to terminate the project, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

While other countries are able to extract the exact chemicals they need to "feed into the reactor as fuel," Fan said there is also the possibility and concern that chemicals capable of producing weapon-grade material could be extracted.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, after use in a reactor the remaining uranium, used to produce nuclear energy, would become new fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. Advanced recycling technologies would reduce the volume, heat and toxicity of used nuclear fuel, but would not completely eliminate its byproducts, the group says.

At the Seabrook plant, a reactor filled with uranium can produce enough continuous energy for a year and a half. When that time is up, the spent nuclear fuel remains contained in fuel vessels and is taken to a facility where it is stored in a pool of water. The vessels are stored 20 feet below the surface of the water, which acts as an inexpensive and readily available shield to the nuclear elements. The storage pool can hold 20 years' worth of fuel.

To extend its storage capacity, in recent years Seabrook Station created a dry storage facility where, instead of storing the vessels in water, they are stored in helium. This can hold up to 60 years of used fuel.

Both the storage pool and the dry storage facility are built to industry standards to withstand natural disasters like fire and floods, are protected by stringent security, and are tested often.

NextEra Energy Seabrook spokesman Alan Griffith said nuclear energy is unique from other energy sources in that it can contain its waste and Seabrook Station has the full capability to safely secure its waste for the life of the plant and beyond.

"It has huge environmental benefits compared to other kinds of energy," he said. "We can safely store it and contain it."

But Fan says this storage is not as adequate as a nuclear repository storage facility like Yucca Mountain would be. "That can accommodate spent fuel for quite a bit, but that's not a long-range solution," he said. "It doesn't really take care of the spent fuel."

Security issues aside, Fan said there are benefits to recycling nuclear fuel. "Of course there are benefits," he said. "Only a fraction of the chemical is burned, so there's a lot of residual. If you talk about economy, it does seem that we should recover what we haven't used."