Private Enterprise Can Solve the Spent Nuclear Fuel Problem Beyond Government Grants
Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations”. He has been featured in the CIO Look Magazine as one of The Most Influential ENERGY LEADERS Shaping the Future of the ENERGY SECTOR
Olivia Vaughan is a business strategist. She has a Bachelor of Commerce Cum Laude and an MBA and operates across key sectors in the circular economy, sustainable systems and the built environment. She is co-founder and CEO of a Nuclear innovation company in South Africa, Next Gen Nuclear.
Steve Curtis has a Master’s degree in Health Physics from UNLV. He has spent decades studying spent fuel issues in Nevada and worked as a technical field team leader for nuclear search and characterization missions for the Department of Energy. He is currently engaged in education, speaking, and writing in favor of nuclear power returning to the United States, especially from recycling spent nuclear fuel in fast reactors. He has recently co-founded and is the Chief Technical Officer for U2energy, Inc. to advance the fast reactor recycling initiative.
Co-authored by Ronald Stein and Steve Curtis from the USA, and Olivia Vaughan from South Africa
Published August 14, 2026, in America Out Loud NEWS
The recent shift in the national conversation around nuclear generated electricity is encouraging. After decades of political hesitation, federal and state leaders are once again speaking positively about the role of nuclear power in delivering reliable, abundant electricity. That change in tone matters. However, favorable rhetoric alone will not solve one of the industry’s most persistent challenges, which is what to do with America’s growing inventory of spent nuclear fuel. That “spent” is also referred to as “slightly used nuclear fuel” (SUNF) which still contains about 95% of its unused potential energy after years inside a reactor
The Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus initiative is a case in point. The program has generated headlines by identifying five states as potential partners in exploring integrated nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Yet the reality is more modest than many observers assume. Although the states have signed non-binding memorandums of understanding to continue discussions, they have not committed to accepting spent nuclear fuel, nor have final host agreements been executed.
That distinction is important because public discussion sometimes creates the impression that a solution to the nation’s nuclear waste dilemma is just around the corner. In reality, the United States remains a long way from establishing a permanent or consolidated system for managing spent fuel.
Decades after Congress assigned the federal government responsibility for disposing of commercial spent nuclear fuel, most of that material remains stored at reactor sites around the country. The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly described the nation’s waste management program as being at an impasse and has called for congressional action to move the process forward.
The Limits of a Government-Only Strategy: Federal efforts in recent years have focused heavily on “consent-based siting,” a process intended to identify willing host communities for spent fuel storage facilities. DOE describes this approach as a collaborative, community-centered process that may ultimately lead to negotiated agreements for interim storage facilities.
Consent-based siting is an improvement over past approaches that attempted to impose solutions from Washington. Communities deserve a meaningful voice in decisions that affect their future.
But the challenge is that process alone is not a solution, as evidenced by the fact that no state has “consented to accept” spent nuclear fuel, either as a permanent solution or an interim solution.
Too often, public policy substitutes studies, committees, consultations, and funding announcements for measurable progress. Government can facilitate discussions and establish regulatory frameworks, but it cannot create effective economic incentives necessary to transform spent nuclear fuel from a liability into a valuable resource.
As long as success is measured by meetings held, grants distributed, and reports published, there is little incentive to deliver a commercially sustainable outcome.
Turning a Liability into an Asset: A different approach begins with a simple question: What if spent nuclear fuel were viewed not primarily as waste, but as a valuable energy resource?
Many advanced nuclear technologies, particularly fast reactors, are designed to utilize materials that remain in used nuclear fuel. Supporters of fuel recycling argue that a significant portion of the energy potential contained in spent fuel remains available for future use. In that view, the challenge is not merely disposal but resource recovery.
This is where private enterprise can make the difference because there is huge commercial opportunity in turning spent nuclear fuel into electricity.
Rather than relying indefinitely on federal appropriations and political cycles, policymakers should consider creating conditions that allow private industry to assume greater responsibility for managing and recycling spent fuel. The federal government would still play an essential role by establishing clear rules, enhancing safety, and honoring existing commitments. But innovation, investment, and execution should increasingly come from the private sector.
A Proposal for Partnership: One model would be to use resources already accumulated through the Nuclear Waste Fund and related federal commitments to facilitate the transfer of spent fuel management responsibilities into a commercially driven framework. At the same time, one or more states would need to voluntarily agree to host facilities capable of receiving, processing, recycling, or otherwise managing used nuclear fuel.
Such an arrangement would not simply spend public money. It would seek to leverage public resources to catalyze private investment, job creation, technological development, and long-term industrial growth.
The DOE has promoted Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses as hubs that could eventually support fuel fabrication, enrichment, recycling of used fuel, and waste management functions. If structured properly, such campuses could become engines of private-sector innovation rather than primarily government-directed programs.
The economic potential could be substantial. DOE has stated that innovation campuses could attract significant private investment and create large numbers of high-paying jobs in host regions.
From Subsidy to Incentive: There is an old saying: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
The same principle applies here.
Simply distributing government funding without creating strong incentives for performance risks perpetuating the cycle of study, delay, and dependency. By contrast, jump-starting companies to enter the business of successfully recycling, processing, and utilizing spent nuclear fuel aligns economic incentives with public objectives.
When private investors have capital at risk, delays become costly, innovation becomes valuable, efficiency becomes essential and results become measurable.
That does not mean government disappears from the process. On the contrary, government remains responsible for enhancing public safety, environmental oversight, and policy certainty. But government should create the conditions for success rather than attempting to manage every aspect of implementation.
A Historic Opportunity: The United States may be entering a unique moment, as public attitudes toward nuclear energy have become more favorable, concerns about energy security are increasing, and advanced reactor technologies continue to gain attention.
Federal leaders deserve credit for recognizing the strategic importance of nuclear power and for reopening discussions about the back end of the fuel cycle.
The next step, however, is to move beyond discussion.
America’s spent nuclear fuel challenge will not be solved by rhetoric, grants, or endless study alone. It will be solved when states voluntarily participate, when private industry sees opportunity rather than liability, and when policymakers create incentives that reward actual progress.
The choice is simple. America can continue talking about the problem or build a system that finally solves it. The most promising path forward is one in which government enables, private enterprise leads, and the nation transforms a long-standing burden into a lasting economic opportunity to provide affordable and abundant electricity to its citizens and to the world.
“What if spent nuclear fuel were viewed not primarily as waste, but as a valuable energy resource?”
This is silly pollyanna stuff. Yes, you can get more energy from it. But that doesn’t solve the waste property. You consume a few artificially created isotopes, but create a whole lot more. It’s like the old lady who swallowed a fly.
I see Nick knows as little of physics as he does climate.
Here is a good recent example of MarkW pontificating on nuclear physics.
Poor little Nick, citing himself as an expert, but merely repeating a well known fact that is utterly irrelevant towards the claim he is trying to defend. As usual.
Reprocessing reduces stored FUEL waste by at least 90%, plus you get more power from the reprocessed fuel
There are other wastes.
“There are other wastes.”
Yes, there are. And the question is, do you come out ahead?
Very much not.
Maybe not ahead regarding the wastes, BUT you get that energy!
And you do less mining for ore
Let’s see the numbers, eg, Gigawatt hours of electricity and cubic metres of waste. Then work out whether we would be ahead.
We’re talking radioisotopes. here. A few gram of Sr-90 can kill a city. Nothing about cubic metres. The waste problem is to make it all go away.
Radioactivity is a normal, natural part of the universe, of the solar system, of planet earth and all life-forms.
It is arguably an essential part of the process of species development and diversification as well as individual differences within species.
Getting rid of the ridiculous embargo on reprocessing and muting the baby-boomer Age of Aquarius superstitious phobia about everything nuclear is overdue.
NO byproducts of ANY processes have ANYWHERE to GO AWAY TO – outer space? – the moon? What is possible is sorting and separation, orderly management and storage in designated areas of whatever is not of likely future use and future refining or destruction.
But storing it for thirty years? 😉
Finally a good use for the moon?
search for Space:1999
You are aware that atmospheric weapons testing released about 5 tons of Plutonium into the atmosphere.
One healthy man can produce enough sperm to impregnate thousands of women, but as in the case of 90Sr, the sperm or 90Sr has to be properly distributed.
“90Sr has to be properly distributed”
Even now there are bad actors around. And for the next century?
you are obviously a clueless numpty.
It’s really embarrassing to read the twaddle you write.
FYI.
Airline crews get more irradiated than most radiation workers over a 10yr period.
When was the last time you flew at FL30?
With a geiger counter?
I have.
A few grams is all we have to worry about and then there’s the fact that it will be gone in a few decades.
If you are trying to find another scam to latch your paycheck to, you are going to have to try harder.
Mr. Stokes: Other comments establish that you find it cannot ALL be made to go away, can you concede that you create an impossible goal? Why set up a plainly impossible goal? Your position renders it impossible to deal with existing waste, which is irrational.
Your enviro-activist slip is showing.
Perhaps the down voter can put into words or point to where Mr. Stokes explains his proposal to handle existing nuclear waste for 25,000 years?
I don’t have one. I don’t make any nuclear waste.
It applies to everything.
To get rid of waste, one must rid the planet of life in all forms.
Mr. 4: Well, that would be a waste!
The question is whether the proposed method of consuming waste does not create more waste than it consumes.
Mr. Stokes: That’s the question you present. I see no evidence from you that recycling nuclear material will create more waste than it removes from the waste stream. I know you, if you could present some numbers and graph it, you would already have done. I can guarantee this- if we don’t attempt to recycle it, we’ll have alot more of it! You insist we stash it somewhere, but nowhere will do- the wishes of you and bigoilbob won’t deal with it, in fact your approach pretty much guarantees it CAN’T be resolved.
So I’ll ask you- M. Currie research created radioactive waste, was it worth it?
Do you have any data showing that it creates more or that was is created is harder to store, or are you just desperately trying to find an argument that will stick?
A few grams of SR90 is going to exist whether the fuel is reprocessed or not.
No one is arguing that waste is not a problem. Your original comment was about reprocessing creating new isotopes, it does not.
The only way to modify the isotopes is to irradiate with a lot of fast neutrons. That can only come as a byproduct of another fission process, which of course is also creating more waste.
Neutron capture cross section for most nuclides is typically larger at thermal energies than higher energies. The exceptions are resonances that are typically lower than fission spectrum neutron energies or D-T sourced neutrons.
By the way, the issue of resonance absorption has a lot of parallels with the transport of IR photons through the atmosphere.
Argue that with France.
Yes, you do come out ahead. You do not need to mine and process uranium into new fuel. Reprocessed allows more energy to be extracted from an existing amount of uranium.
Nick,
The nuclear electricity topic including management of part-used fuel has been dogged by objections, some of which are low in science and high in emotion, often losing touch with reality. The social cost of slowed acceptance has a dollar cost that I do not know but could be high enough to need repair.
Such repair has to incorporate known science that is not contentious. Matters like decay half lives and the range distance of radiation types like alpha, beta, gamma, neutrons plus the mechanisms of harm to people and other life forms. In my understanding, the present knowledge about these main factors is excellent and is not a barrier to design of ways to manage this reactor “waste”.
I have floated before that one management option is to simply disperse the materials in the oceans. Dilution is so large that the addition is far less than existing natural radiation and so does not add materially to overall harm. I floated this not because I favour it, but to help publicise the known physics.
It does not matter much that (demonised) Plutonium-239 as found in reactors has a half-life of 24,110 years. That observation alone does not signify harm. The natural isotope Uranium-235 half life is 704 million years, but so what? We do not need to “manage” uranium forever, we do not need to manage plutonium forever.
The critical management consideration is simple. Keep adequate, safe distance between radiation source and life form. Where appropriate, use dilution.
And take emotion out of the equation.
Geoff S
Geoff
“Plutonium-239 as found in reactors has a half-life of 24,110 years. That observation alone does not signify harm. The natural isotope Uranium-235 half life is 704 million years, but so what?”
Prima facie, U-235 is 29200 x less harmful.
“Keep adequate, safe distance between radiation source and life form. “
Yes, for 24110 years, and then some. But how?
Nick,
A half life does not tell you much.
It doesn’t tell you the decay process. It doesn’t tell you the decay energy.
For example.
Alpha decay has high energy but a range of cm in air. You could stand a metre away from that and probably get no real damage.
Beta decay has the potential to travel a short distance in the air and can also have variable energy, proportional to the momentum of the electron/positron that is emitted. Not all beta decay is the same. But like alpha radiation, let distance be your friend. A few metres will probably see you right.
Gamma decay is high energy electromagnetic waves, this can travel a very long way, event through some reasonable thickness of metal. However, it is comfortably blocked by a 10m of rock.
So when you are concerned about radiation, can you tell us which type and why you seem to be so focused on half life. I’d be more concerned about having a few micro grams of a short half life, alpha particle emitting atom inside me, (following a radioisotope injection), than I would about having a kg or two of Uranium buried 10m down in my backyard, encased in concrete.
Remember, it’s the radiation flux rate and the proximity that gets you, not the half life.
If you were really concerned about radiation, would you eat bananas? PS, don’t look too deep into your own bones either. You’re full of it.
Not forgetting how organic material like ancient trees are dated through Carbon 14. We live on the surface of a planet with a liquid core that has a not insignificant amount of radioactive materials, yet the planet isn’t sterile. Granite, as found in Cornwall as well as Brittany, is radioactive because it originates in magma being a metamorphic rock. The atmosphere blocks a large amount of X ray radiation, which is why X ray telescopes have to be located in space.
Then, permanent, fugaboudid storage should be easy to execute, without communizing public resources, as this article dances around. Until then, why are literally digging ourselves in deeper?
Mr. bob: It’s been executed elsewhere, in US we built something called Yucca Mountain, but eco-activists and corrupt pols have prevented “execution”. The article doesn’t “dance around” it, instead it offers an alternative approach, essentially nuclear recycling. You (and Mr. Stokes) prefer to establish an impossible, non-solution, that is, 25,000 year proven entombment. Why do you guys prefer to make it impossible, rather than consider the possible?
The world has put nuclear material to good use, now there’s waste to deal with, and you folks bury your heads in “prove 25,000 year disposal-or-nothing” sand. You’re basically luddites.
Read for comprehension. I’m high behind any long term solution, state, federal, private, that allows us to collectively forget what we did to safely store these wastes – as we surely will, over the required time. But the inferred communization of tax revenue to help out a collection of private and public ventures that didn’t plan ahead, is certainly the “dance around” that is the real beg of the article. It shares the same features of many other WUWT articles that rent seek for special treatment for special industries, coal, oil, nuc, etc., because of [fill in the blank]. Too big to fail. We can’t compete fairly, so let us leave our mess for you to clean up later (gold, coal, copper, oil, natural gas, nuc). Making us do things right is SO unfair. And so on, ad nauseum.
Mr. bob: Thanks for reducing your emotional appeals to a few trite expressions. It’s also funny that you think you know what “rent seek” means, at the same time showing that you don’t understand it.
If you really care, tell us what you have done to clean up the sites used by M. Currie. That’d be a start!
“rent seeking”
Rent-seeking is when people or companies grow their wealth by changing rules or laws instead of making new products or working harder. [1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)
Exactly what’s being attempted in these WUWT articles. Whether thru whining, threatening, false historical assumptions.
As for M. Curie, what?
By your definition, WUWT is not rent seeking. Turns out your “read for comprehension” remark was self-directed projection.
Not surprised that you can’t comprehend, but M. Currie was a scientist who researched and processed radioactive material, and left a waste site. As Mr. Stokes asks, did we come out ahead?
WUWT is a vessel for these regular whines. They certainly facilitate the rent seeking.
As for M. Curie, we know who she was. What’s missing is any possible relevance to the subject under discussion. But to bone throw, any radioactive human endeavor needs to be done properly. Too bad you deflect from that truth.
Mr. bob: So now you admit that WUWT is not rent-seeking. Your lawyer gave you good advice- retract the libel NOW!
“ processed radioactive material”
Yes. She also died from a rare aplastic anaemia, caused by bone marrow damage.
Mr. Stokes: Perhaps you can explain the relevance of M. Currie’s to your acolyte, bob. Her cause of death is well-known to scientists, who give her the full measure of respect for pursuing the truth at the cost of her life. Mr. bob thinks her research wasn’t done properly, when she was in fact casting light in a space that was dark until she came along. Her actual cause of death was pursuit of truth and further knowledge for humans to come.
And you say that, because her research spread radioactive material in France, not worth it. You have no respect for the titans who preceded you.
Bigoil,
We in Australia have been cleaning up after mining since the 1940s at least. Before then there was often not enough spare cash to pay for rehab.
I can walk you over mile after mile of land where there have been several past mines and would bet you that you could not tell where was mined and where was not.
Aussie miners are mostly normal family folk with normal Aussie values. We miners as a group do not want to leave behind an ugly legacy any more than our dentist would.
Dentists also do a lot of extraction too – and clean up afterwards.
Geoff S
We don’t here. Most other lands don’t. BTW, where does
Australia store it’s tired nuc waste?
“We in Australia have been cleaning up after mining since the 1940s at least.”
Apparently not:
https://theconversation.com/cleaning-up-australias-80-000-disused-mines-is-a-huge-job-but-the-payoffs-can-outweigh-the-costs-215447
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/with-its-mining-boom-past-australia-deals-with-the-job-of-cleaning-up/
Your knowledge of the radiation from decay seems to be lacking. I worked in the Navy’s nuclear program as a Reactor Operator and we received significant training on radiation and what kind of shielding needed for the three main types, alpha particles (a helium nucleus), beta particles (an electron) and gamma rays.
You dead skin will stop the alpha particle before it got to live skin cells and the only way for it to be dangerous is to breath in radon, which decays with an alpha particle, or to ingest other alpha-emitting elements. A beta particle will travel a bit farther before losing its ability to ionize atoms but a layer of clothing would be enough. It is the gamma emitters that need shielding to protect us.
This stuff will be around for 24000+ years. People will ingest it. People will breathe in particles. Alpha radiation kills (just ask Litvinenko).
The problem is more acute since this waste is also a potential potent weapon.
Ignorance is not a wonderful thing. What is your background on radio-isotopes? From what I’ve read from you it seems your knowledge is very thin.
Ignorance is not knowing the facts. Stupidity is continuing to adhere to the same incorrect argument after being informed of the facts. Most people posting here know which category Nick is in on this issue.
My father worked in Nuclear physics, and supercooled magnet depts.
His best friend was the RPB chief nuclear safety engineer for the UK. (Mr I Jones)
We might know a few things about the subject unlike you.
Apart from accidents like the stupid one at sellafield decades ago, the embarrassing thing for people like you is the extraordinarily good record of nuclear safety inc France which generates the vast majority of electricity with Nuclear.
Wanna run an electric car in France…..yea right it’s NUCLEAR POWERED.
All the more reason to use it as fuel now.
Nick,
The methods for storage address the concerns about particles in the air. You are more at risk from radon.
Litvinenko was not killed by alpha radiation from an external source.
Alpha radiation does not penetrate the skin.
He was assassinated when Polonium-210 was put in his tea.
Ingested, It was not accidental or incidental exposure. He was poisoned.
If you are concerned about polonium-210, then do not handle paper or wear clothes. Not that it will harm you, but being paranoid, you should avoid those at all hazards.
None of these discussions is about polonium-210, by the way.
“Ingested,”
Yes. But you can’t guarantee that other bad actors in the future may not get hold of waste and put it in the tea. Or the water supply.
You refuse to deal with dosages. Do you think you haven’t ingested radioactive elements in radon, vegetables, rock dust. Guess again!
I worked in space systems, nuclear hardening of electronics.
You are correct.
They tried to peel me off for nuc school, late in boot camp, based on my results of our forced retake of intake exams. A 6 year commitment, albeit with petty officer promotions while still training, versus a 4 year commitment that included equipment operator A school followed by a battalion posting, less than 20 miles from the Air Force base that most WAF’s got sent to after their boot camp. Oooh, tough choice…
And where does the Uranium come from?
You are standing on top of it…
(it’s natural and comes from inside the earth).
Ever been to Brittany?
Go to a local hotel made out of Granite.
You’ll get more radiation thrown at your body than ever will come from a NPB.
Idem Baltic states – levels of Radon inside buildings that are far in excess of NPB or used NPB fuel.
As I previously said:- you are a numpty that knows sweet zilch about the subject and it’s embarrassing!
Nick asks “But how?”
As I said, Nick, you keep people safe and distant from the material by diluting it in the oceans.
I seldom walk on them these days. Not sure about you.
Geoff S
My solution to this problem has followed on from Lord Kelvin’s observation that they did not know why the planet is not seismically dead, like Mars is dead – as we now know.
We also know why the Earth is still hot inside – which the Great 19th Century scientist did not know. It’s radioactivity.
The easiest way to dispose of radioactive materials is to put it back inside the planet.
Drop a cement torpedo, filled with nuclear waste, vertically down to the depths of a subduction zone.
It will be safely embedded in the Ground and secured by the Ocean and eventually it will reach the Mantle to continue the life of our little blue ball.
Radioactivity plus constant “kneading” by the tidal effect of that large and nearby Moon. The Earth Moon barycenter is 2,902 miles off (towards the Moon) from the Earth’s center. Earth gets slung around that offset point on the Moon’s 28 day orbit. As Earth rotates each day, that 2,902 mile difference between its center of mass and center of gravitational forces pushes and pulls on every part of the planet.
That has me wondering how large and massive of a moon could be put together for Mars if all the asteroids could be stuck together, after mining out all the metals from them. Might have to go get a few more from out past Pluto, or nick one or two of Pluto’s moons to add to the pile. Get some Marsquakes going by putting together a large enough moon to produce a high offset barycenter.
Or just rocket the stuff into the sun.
Been proposed before.
Simpler idea. Not thought out so there could be unintended consequences or unrealized issues, but here goes.
Put it back in the mines from which it was extracted.
Thoughts?
Two problems:
1) Although those mines are currently not economically viable, they might be in the future so we shouldn’t toxify them.
2) Mines are not secure from ne’er-do-wells
Point 1 is noted.
Point 2 is a solution rich problem.
Maybe not cheap, but consider Fort Knox.
Chemical reprocessing does not create new isotopes. The reprocessing only separates existing elements. The use of reprocessed fuel can create new isotopes and is no different than first use.
Another example of government failure. We have a waste problem everybody knows that. Government should ask for ideas for how we should handle the waste. All qualified outfits or individuals may submit ideas. There will be duplicates, that’s okay in fact that’s good. There will be stupid ideas and everything in between. We should look at them all. Shelf but keep inferior ideas. Consolidate similar ideas, ask for bids to carry out experimental work. Expand the ones that work best then get busy handling our waste. I don’t see why reusing the waste can’t be done at an existing nuclear facility. You don’t need authority to handle it on site because it is already there. In the end there will always be some waste that must be stored so get busy with the storage issue now.
I can’t understand why we haven’t done this yet. It solves two big problems ….. electricity generation and storage. “Spent” doesn’t mean useless.
When we exhale, we emit spent air.
When we urinate, we eject spent water.
Two cases in point supporting your comment.
Russia’s Rosatom is moving ahead with a second Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facility.
State nuclear corporation Rosatom is building RT-2 in Zheleznogorsk, an additional reprocessing facility with capacity of 800 metric ton/y. Its existing reprocessing facility, RT-1 has a capacity of 400 metric ton/y.
Russia aims to recycle up to 95% of spent nuclear fuel, reusing separated uranium and plutonium in mixed-oxide (MOX) and REMIX fuels to reduce long-term waste and uranium mining needs.
The existing Mayak Production Association RT-1 plant in Ozersk, Russia, processes spent fuel from VVER-440, VVER-1000, and fast reactors, recovering materials that contribute to mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication for fast reactors like the BN-800.
Wasn’t a fast breeder reactor constructed at Hanford during WW II to produce plutonium 239 from uranium 238 for the production of nuclear bombs? How long was the reactor in operation?
Partly right. Hanford’s B Reactor did make weapons plutonium from U-238, but it wasn’t a fast breeder. It was a graphite-moderated, water-cooled pile that made Pu-239 by bombarding natural uranium with neutrons. Graphite slows neutrons to thermal speeds, so it was a thermal production reactor. Its conversion ratio was below 1, meaning it destroyed more fissile atoms than it created. A true breeder makes more fissile material than it consumes, and with uranium and plutonium that takes fast neutrons. No breeder existed during WWII; EBR-I in Idaho first demonstrated breeding in 1953. My guess is the confusion comes from the Fast Flux Test Facility. That was a sodium-cooled fast reactor at Hanford from 1980 to 1992, built to test fuels for the breeder program.
As for how long B ran: it went critical on September 26, 1944, was shut down at the end of 1946, restarted in 1948 as Cold War tensions grew, and was permanently shut down in February 1968. That’s a little over 23 years from startup to shutdown, minus an idle period of roughly one to two years.
Charles,
Thank you for showing the importance of factual material, as opposed to emotional.
Geoff S
Thank you the interesting info. I live in BC and see the occasional videos on the US TV of workers cleaning up the site. The people there still worry about radioactivity leaching into the Columbia river and contaminating and harming the salmon
BTW: What is the chance of restoring the image posting icon? I use it to post the chart of Death Valley temperatures from the late John L . Daly’s website to explain the saturation of the absorption of IR light by CO2? This occurred in 1920 when the concentration of CO2 was 300 ppmv. All the so-called global warming after that can’t be due to CO2 as claimed by the IPCC.
You can always link to the images.
Mayak always was a nuclear disaster area. It’s the perfectly BAD example of what NOT to do inc lake
Russia has a history of doing ZILCH about the environment to this day..
Luckily Russia is large and Ural has large forests which could soak up the mess of this one:-
The Kyshtym disaster the Mayak disaster or was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak,
Karachay:-
“At its peak in the 1990s, standing on the shore of Lake Karachay for just one hour delivered a lethal radiation dose of around 600 R ….”
“the activities at Mayak became the contamination source in northern Chelyabinsk and the Ural region.
The radioactive pollution was caused mainly by a lack of nuclear technology, lack of knowledge about the effects of radioactive material on the environment, and lack of a safe method of waste disposal. Workers’ safety and welfare were given little to no consideration.
In October 1951, the Mayak plant began using Lake Karachay to store nuclear wastes to stop them from getting into the Techa River.”
“Direct Dumping: Early operations lacked safe waste-management systems, leading workers to dump roughly 100 petabecquerels of liquid radioactive waste directly into the river headwaters.
From 1949 to 1956 the Mayak complex [2] dumped an estimated 76 million cubic metres (2.7×10 9 cu ft) of radioactive waste water into the Techa River,”
“Local Exposure: Around 30,000 local residents in riverside villages suffered chronic internal and external radiation exposure before authorities acknowledged the danger or evacuated communities.”
“High rates of leukemia, chromosomal abnormalities, and birth defects were recorded among populations living along the banks.”
DOES the US, France, UK behave this way? NO
Do they actually value human life? YES
The U.S. has accumulated over 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel…about time to start using it to generate electricity again…
The world has 8 billion people, so whatever happened anywhere had no impact on world population.
World War Two, a deliberate slaughter stared by Europe, killed many much people in a few years.
Excellent post. Three supporting observations:
“ The remaining very radioactive 4% is vitrified”
You may have reduced the original to 4% by mass. But as you say it is much more radioactive. And the process creates a whole lot more new waste.
Nick,
Colleagues and I discovered/developed the Ranger Uranium deposits.
They were rare examples of where Nature had encapsulated radioactive uranium in rocks, similar to encapsulating “waste” isotopes in glass – or in Australia’s top product Synrock as in synthetic rock.
The Ranger ores were of the order of 10,000 times enriched by Nature. They were mined for 30 years with no apparent harm to man nor beast. I survived exposures there above those experienced by most people but have reached a happy 85 years with marbles intact.
So, what is the problem with “waste” isotopes being put into glass or Synrock? The are substantial similarities with natural uranium ores that overall have helped a penny-poor Australia to stay solvent despite the efforts of the largely ignorant green blob.
Can we please remove some emotion from policy decisions?
Geoff S
Rationality and ideology cannot function in the same mind space at the same time, Geoff.
And once ideology takes hold, it’s almost impossible to dispense with.
But keep trying with Nick’s condition please.
I salute your saga of testicular preservation!<g>
Keep up the good work.
“encapsulated radioactive uranium “
And, as you say, people dug it up. Radioactive waste is a potentially powerful weapon, which at some time with governence less perfect than the present, might well lead to people also digging it up and sprinkling it on their enemies.
Pu-239 halflife 24110 years!
you do nothing else but spout rubbish!
The most common “darwin award” radiological incidents which resulted in death were caused by numpties like you!
In one case nr Kingisepp just inside Russia, some loons took home a stolen item from a local decrepit hospital (there are lots of them in ex-USSR).
What they didn’t know was they had taken and hidden away in their hallway a strong Cobalt 60 source. After the dog died and people started vomiting – only then did they call in emergency services! hmmm nice!
Another incident in northern Siberia, some other numpties (like you) took home an electric source from a remote northern passage lighthouse.
It happened to be nice and warm so they sat down next to it, like an electric fire in the cold and warmed themselves around it.
It turned out after their fatalities it was a strong radioactive heat source used to power thermal batteries for long term lighthouse electric power.
With significant ignorance like Stokes above anything is possible..
Like most ideologues, or paid agents, all Nick is willing to do (or capable of) is tritely repeating the same irrelevant facts and emotional arguments and pretending to himself that he is making a difference.
Many of these Dr. Evil paid up commenters – from mystery sources – post much more than I do, and they bring much more knowledge and evidence than me. Nick, bd, Anthony Banton, Bellman, et. al, deserve an order of magnitude more than I. Doh! They are already getting it….
Mr. bob: They bring more than you? Pretty low bar, eh?
twice nothing, is still nothing
Bob, you have an undeservedly high opinion of yourself.
All the more reason why it should be used as fuel, and not stored.
I once held the proper clearance. Your suggestion about weapons is flatly wrong.
It is also very short lived.
The long lived stuff isn’t waste, it’s fuel.
The short lived stuff can be stored for a few decades then it isn’t a problem.
You have no physical science education do you. You CANNOT make an isotope MORE radioactive. It naturally decays at a given rate, i.e., radioactivity. You may create more mass using reprocessed fuel, but guess what, you make more mass with first use fuel too.
You seem to be reading from anti-nuclear sites which use propaganda to scare people. The Internet and AI’s are available, use them.
Typically, when I am quoting someone, you attack me and not the original. But nobody said the isotopes are more radioactive. The waste is more radioactive. Less active components are removed.
The radiation levels from fission products (AKA high level radioactive waste) will drop down to the levels of the original ore in a few thousand years, with some studies showing 600 years. Considering that King Tut’s tomb was untouched for ~3,000 years, there shouldn’t be much of a problem in constructing a repository that will last several thousand years.
For someone wanting radioactive material for weapons, it may be easier to build a reactor to make fresh high level waste.
Unlike chemical or biological hazards, radioactive contamination is easily detectable at levels orders of magnitude lower than what would be a hazard.
“that King Tut’s tomb was untouched for ~3,000 years”
King Tut’s tomb is famous because it was one of the few that escaped raiding.
Here one successful raid is enough. And the motivation may be very strong.
Nick,
What mathematical algorithm did you choose to estimate the probability of more sealed tombs like King Tut’s, that have not been discovered yet?
Geoff S
Rud said this, “The remaining very radioactive 4% is vitrified for safe“. He did not say reprocessing makes it more radioactive. The 4% was already in the spent fuel and was already very radioactive. It was separated out by reprocessing and remained very radioactive from the start.
You said.
The process DOES NOT CREATE a whole lot more NEW waste. It concentrates a very radioactive element during separation, the original mass remains the same.
Mr. Gorman: You have hit upon the unsupported assumption that Mr. Stokes has used through this thread, I called him on it but it seems he has left the building.
Paul C and others,
A point about vitrification that has been missed is that, in theory and probably in practice, the dilution of the radioactive starting material can be selected so that final glass (or Synrock) pellet has a desired target level of radioactivity.
If for example you are not much perturbed by the natural radioactivity of uranium in ore, say a rich 5% by weight of the rock, you can make a glass that has 5% uranium to compare with the natural rock.
Likewise, if you seek a glass that ends up with a certain level of radioactivity from processing spent fuel, you can adjust the final level of radioactivity of the glass pellet to the value that you seek. If people complain that the glass has too high a level, you can simply crush it and blend it into a new glass of lower total radioactivity.
I used to have a small cube of Plutonium 239 about 1 cubic centimeter in size on my office desk to frighten greens until a do-good bureaucrat confiscated it under pain of prosecution. It is an alpha emitter so it had a thin cover to stop the alphas getting out. I believe it was made by the US Dept of Energy in the 1960s when there was a surplus of Plutonium selling at a few US dollars a gram. It might have been diluted for public consumption, Ido not know, it was given to me as a gift with a cheeky grin and it was a lot of fun.
Geoff S
This is a pea and thimble trick. Stein is very loudly talking about reprocessing by passing the waste through another cycle in the reactor.
“Many advanced nuclear technologies, particularly fast reactors, are designed to utilize materials that remain in used nuclear fuel.”
That modifies isotopes and creates new waste. You are now talking about chemical reprocessing, which doesn’t modify isotopes, but can concentrate them, leading to a product with higher radiation intensity..
These things are elementary, and you aren’t helping anyone by refusing to get your head around them.
Here is what Stein said.
Notice the term recycling. That is normally done through chemically reprocessing. Yes, some fast nuclear reactors can use reprocessed spent fuel to physically change the spent fuel into a shape and form that the reactor can use. But remember, this article is not about replacing all existing reactors with fast reactors. It is about recycling the spent fuel and reusing the fuel again is existing reactors.
The main point is that recycling and reprocessing DOES NOT create new very radioactive elements. Chemical reprocessing spent fuel so it can be reused in existing reactors only removes existing highly radioactive elements that are not necessary thereby concentrating them into smaller pieces of material.
It isn’t “nuclear waste” it is slightly contaminated fuel that needs purification before reuse.
Of course you can reprocess spent fuel into something useful again, either energy or spent uranium tank killers. I spent four years managing a uranium exploration company, and, with a scintillometer in your hand, and a radiation exposure unit in your pocket, you are much safer than walking down the halls of a hospital where sickness hangs out. Sure, radiation needs monitoring and control, but it is easy to handle safely. Here’s a comment (from Doctors I met with at the IAEA Redbook review in Austria): workers in radiation environments live longer than in other industries, apparently because they get a mandated health check-up every year, and they detect problems early.
Each worker wears dosage accumulators. If a worker has run up too much dosage, he is transferred to another job.
The most dangerous job is airline pilot who is surrounded by lots of electronics and screens, plus gets radiation at high altitude.
Airline stewardesses who smoke, eat airline food, cook with gas (radon), drink alcohol, are guaranteed to have miscarriages.
Care to tell us the route that Radon takes to get to the body from cooking with gas?
I cook with a mostly methane based mix, some call it natural gas.
Radon is found in some houses that have granite for basement rock. Some granite is a source of Radon but not all granites.
I live along the front range of Colorado where there is a not insignificant amount of uranium in the soil. Most homes will show some levels of Radon from the decay chain of U-238. Since it is a heavy element it settles mostly in the basement. If there is a high enough level it can be a health issue from the alpha decay in the lungs, especially if someone spends significant amount of time in the basement. Otherwise it is just background “noise” in that it won’t cause any problems, certainly not any more than spending a lot of time outdoors in the sun while at over a mile high.
What is the mechanism by which electronics cause bodily harm?
Stress-induced anxiety resulting in adverse physical conditions caused by watching too much CBS Evening News on a digital LCD television.
Electromagnetic emissions.
Cell phone radio waves for example.
Computer screens are not as bad as they once were given LED displays replaced CRT displays. Same for TVs.
Long tutorial and lots of intracacies.
It is real. It usually is inconsequential.
Example I: In WWII, personnel standing in front of microwave radar emitters were literally cooked. Microwave ovens resulted but were introduced as radar ranges.
There are numerous failure modes that create hazards with potential for bodily harms.
Electrical shock. Not always associated with circuit failures. Sometimes stupidity is all it takes.
I am out of time.
Good question.
Except there is no evidence that radio frequency EM causes medical issues at levels found in a home or office.
Given that the nuclear fuel used by the Navy in its subs and aircraft carriers (and previously cruisers/destroyers) use very highly enriched U235 I have to wonder how much useable U235 that could be extracted from their used reactor cores that, as I recall, are stored at Hanford, WA. I was a Reactor Operator in the Navy in the mid-70s to 1981 first training on D1G reactor before working new construction on the experimental MARF (S7G) reactor and then serving on two different subs so am familiar with our nuclear fuel.
Permanent disposal of nuclear “waste” is throwing away resources. In the 80’s there was a competition where the government was choosing a method to encapsulate nuclear waste.
One entry used borosilicate glass to mix the radioactive material into. A competitor was called Synrock for synthetic rock. Radioactive material and Synrock powder would be mixed then poured into a corrugated steel container. The container would be put into an induction heating coil until red hot, then vertically compressed to solidify the Synrock.
A sub-scale test machine was built and demonstrated using simulated nuclear material. Full scale containers would be 55 gallon barrel sized.
Samples of the Synrock and borosilicate glass were subjected to various tests to see if they’d break down and release the simulated waste. Synrock passed every one. One test was being subjected to extremely hot water for a long time. All that happened to Synrock samples was slight discoloration.
The glass broke off chunks and released simulated waste.
Of course the government did not select the Synrock process.
But the winner hasn’t been used due to the Yucca Mountain storage facility not being allowed to be used. Most likely the company that won the competition with its inferior method no longer exists. Nobody can “win” a government contract to do a process that’s only applicable to a government problem, then sit around waiting for 40+ years to start doing it and getting paid.
The Hanford vit plant in Washington state is now in operation and is turning Hanford’s tank-stored defense waste into glass. Defense waste material is retrieved from the tanks and then loaded into glass logs using gigantic melters.
Because each glass log contains only 2% by volume of valueless nuclear waste, the vitrification approach to dealing with Hanford’s tank waste increases the volume of material which must be later managed as high level nuclear waste by fifty times.
The vitrified Hanford waste was originally to be sent to Yucca Mountain after being loaded into storage containers. Since Yucca Mountain was terminated and will never be restarted — and for several good reasons — that option remains permanently off the table.
Some knowledgeable waste specialists believe that simply grouting the Hanford tank waste in place inside the tanks would serve to immobilize the waste long enough for natural decay to reduce its radioactivity to levels such that even if the material eventually got loose, it wouldn’t pose any substantial threat to the human population.
Another future possibility is to retrieve the Hanford waste from the tanks but not to vitrify it. Rather, to package it for underground disposal in the bedded salt of the Salado Formation at WIPP in New Mexico. WIPP already handles defense wastes which are radioactively hotter than the defense waste material now stored in Hanford’s tanks, but which have not been vitrified.
The waste packages which now go to WIPP are packaged well enough to allow safe transportation to the WIPP facility, and well enough to keep the waste stable for that period of time which passes until a WIPP operational panel is permanently sealed.
After a WIPP underground panel has been sealed, the bedded salt itself handles the job of permanent disposal of the waste. And so it doesn’t matter if a waste package leaks at some future point in time, because the radioactive material isn’t going anywhere.
However, the State of Washington insists that the Hanford tank waste be vitrified.
It has been my opinion for some time that the main reason why Washington State officials want vitrification — thus producing the most stable waste form possible, but at the cost of greatly increasing the total volume of material which must be later managed as high level waste — the reason they want vitrification is that they are suspicious the defense waste will never leave the Hanford site.
Back in December of 2023, I drove into town and attended a presentation put on by US-DOE and the State of Washington concerning the status of Hanford Site cleanup. I asked the State of Washington’s representative if the true reason why the state wants full vitrification is because they are suspicious the defense waste will never leave Hanford.
She confirmed that yes indeed, the possibility that the defense waste will never leave the Hanford Site is one of the primary drivers for full vitrification, which they well recognize is a very expensive approach to permanent disposal in comparison with non-vit waste packaging for disposal at WIPP.
Here is the bottom line. Do we really need to vitrify the valueless nuclear wastes which will be produced by spent fuel reprocessing?
The experience we now have with disposing hot defense wastes at WIPP demonstrates that radioactively hot material does not necessarily need to be vitrified into glass. It can be packaged and safely disposed of without vitrification if we choose to use the bedded salt of the Salado Formation in New Mexico as our geologic disposal media.
We’ve seen the fluff in the above article by Ronald Stein, et. al., several times before on WUWT.
Facts:
The US currently has over 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel stored across the country.
— source: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/can-u-s-nuclear-waste-management-keep-up-with-the-nuclear-renaissance/ .
This nuclear waste is stored in 70-80 separate sites in more than 35 states.
Furthermore, the US produces approximately 2,000 metric tons of additional spent nuclear fuel each year from just its commercial nuclear power plant reactors.
France, one of the most progressive nations in the world in terms of recycling SNF, only processes about 1,100 metric tons per year . . . see the problem?
The SNF reprocessing technology currently employed in France recovers about 96% of the reusable material (roughly 95% uranium and 1% plutonium) from the SNF, so it has its own nuclear waste stream that must be stored somewhere.
Storing spent nuclear fuel in the United States has cost taxpayers and utilities over $10 billion in direct compensation and damages, with total federal liability estimated at $44.5 billion due to the lack of a permanent disposal site.
Storing and managing commercial nuclear waste across temporary sites costs the U.S. roughly $4.5 to $5 billion per year.
— source: https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/steep-costs-nuclear-waste-us
Economic reality has a lot to do with it:
From Google’s AI bot:
“Under present market conditions, reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and turning it into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel costs roughly double the price of utilizing a “once-through” cycle with raw uranium.
[1] https://www.projectoptimist.us/why-us-doesnt-recycle-spent-nuclear-fuel/ ,
[2] https://www.ucs.org/resources/nuclear-reprocessing-dangerous-dirty-and-expensive .
Also this from Google’s AI bot:
“Standard light-water reactors can safely run on a core made of up to 30% to 50% MOX fuel without major structural changes. Using MOX requires slight plant modifications, such as adding extra control rods, because plutonium alters the reactor’s neutron physics . . . No commercial U.S. reactors are licensed or fueled by MOX today.”
Mr. ToldYouSo, isn’t it wonderful that we’ve had the wisdom and foresight to keep this valuable energy resource stored right where we can get at it quickly without having to dig it up from the ground somewhere?
When the day comes that spent fuel reprocessing is the norm in the US, future generations will be thanking us for not doing something stupid like disposing of an energy resource they themselves will be making heavy use of.
The face of a broken analog clock is right twice a day. Amazing, huh?
Also, this correction to your comment (no charge):
“If
Whenthe day comes that spent fuel reprocessing is the norm in the US . . .”There are solutions to all of the problems that you fret over.
Please list.
“There are solutions to all of the problems that you fret over.”
I see . . . throw out an absurdly false statement . . . and then just walk away.
ROTFL.
C’mon, give me another down vote . . . I know you have that, if nothing else, in you.