So is the logic of recycling uranium as straightforward as that for recycling an aluminum can? Philosophy Professor Benham Taebi at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has argued in a recent International Herald Tribune op-ed that reprocessing is the way to go:
But what is most striking in this controversy is the “missing nuclear debate.” Little is said about the major distinctions between the various production methods, or nuclear fuel cycles. Rather than reducing nuclear power to a simple yes/no, good/bad dichotomy, we need to focus first on the advantages and disadvantages of each nuclear energy production method, including the burdens and benefits they pose now and in generations to come.
He notes that a key benefit of these alternative fuel cycles is to shorten the period of radioactivity from 200,000 years to a mere 10,000. An improvement to be sure, but still sobering given that the earlist forms of picture writing were invented less than 10,000 years ago; and the first phonetic writing systems only about 5,500 years ago. Further, shouldn't we be focusing not on the advantages and disadvantages of each nuclear energy production method, but rather on a broad competition amongst all potential technologies claiming an ability for cost-efficient, low-carbon power?
A number of industry executives made many of the same general points as Taebi in presentations to the a US panel focused on restarting the nuclear industry. Chairman of GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) Jack Fuller actually compared complex nuclear fuel cycles with highly radioactive wastes and simple old household garbage:
We have been tempted in the United States to believe that the back-end of the fuel cycle is too complex to solve. However, on a simple level, it is no more difficult than what we do at home - recycle and reuse waste.
No more difficult indeed.
It is instructive that none of the executives seem to suggest paying for these new approaches themselves, normally what an industry would do with its lineup of exciting and common sense innovations. Fuller noted that his firm "strongly believes that recycling is the best policy and technology option for the US to pursue." He added, "The question now is how to develop the policy framework so that this proven option can be brought to the marketplace."
How about a policy framework such as (a) remove subsidies; (b) tax greenhouse gas emissions; and (c) ensure fees paid by the nuclear industry to transfer long-tail risks of their fuel cycle onto the public are actuarily accurate and financially fair? Then, this "proven option" can have its day or not.
Instead, Fuller suggests diverting accrued money in the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) to cover startup costs. While the NWF was funded by ratepayers not taxpayers (a good thing), there is already concern that the collections will not support the long-term financial costs of the needed nuclear waste repository (or repositories).
In addition, given the scale of past investments into reprocessing, it is hard to imagine using the NWF very long without bankrupting funding for the still-needed long-term waste repository. The estimated cost of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor alone at the time it was cancelled was $8-11 billion, roughly $16-22 billion in today's dollars. In contrast, the current funding balance of the Nuclear Waste Fund is only about $24 billion.
Fuller did acknowledge the proliferation concerns around reprocessing, as did Taebi. However, both believe they can be managed relatively easily, an optimism I don't share. Fuller further remarked that proliferation concerns were
the ostensible reason why the US turned its back on recycling three decades ago. But that US policy did not prevent Britain, France, Japan or Russia from building domestic recycling facilities, nor will it prevent China or India from following suit.
Whither economics? Do higher costs, low capacity utilization, poor operating efficiency and safety problems have no role in the world of reprocessing at all? Have these foreign investments been technical and commercial successes? A review of some of the problems these reprocessing plants have experienced can be found here.
There is another way of looking at the reprocessing issue. If nuclear power, even with reprocessing, is too expensive to compete on its own merits -- even ignoring the proliferation risks; and if the industry is unwilling to cover the cost of its own R&D to bring the proven, safer, and cheaper approaches they are claiming in these public meetings into operation; what possible justification is there for us to subsidize, ignore, or downplay the proliferation risks? For a concise rebuttal to many of the arguments made by industry, consider the statement made by Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists before this same panel:
UCS is not aware of any reprocessing-based technology option currently being put forward for near-term deployment that would have a significant and beneficial impact on the storage and disposal of spent fuel. To have a significant and beneficial impact, a technology should have a demonstrated potential to substantially reduce, in a reasonable time frame (one or two generations), the risks to public health and safety from the nuclear fuel cycle without increasing the risks of proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
In our view, current evidence indicates that fuel cycle options that entail reprocessing and recycling of weapon-usable materials fail on all of these counts and should be not be adopted in the United States. This is the case even for options utilizing modifications of conventional aqueous (PUREX) reprocessing, such COEX and NUEX, or non-aqueous processes such as pyroprocessing, and applies to scenarios employing thermal reactors, fast reactors or accelerators. Relative to the once-through cycle, these options would
- Increase the complexity and cost of nuclear waste management and disposal;
- Increase risk to the public from routine releases, accidents and sabotage attacks;
- Increase the risk that terrorists will obtain materials usable in a crude nuclear explosive device; and,
- Continue to leave a substantial burden on future populations for management of wastes produced by the current generation, contravening the principle of intergenerational equity.
