Recycling Used Fuel

Background

The waste may not have to be deposited right away. Current light water reactors use only about 5% of the energy. Fuel rods, thus, still contain 95% of the potential energy from the uranium in them [1]. This can be reused.

There is currently enough energy in the nuclear waste in the United States to power the entire country for 100 years with clean energy if one so chooses [2]. It’s only the US. Take all other countries with used fuel, which becomes a lot of energy.

Recycling comes with the advantages that, in addition to providing more energy, the already small amount of waste is significantly reduced, and at the same time, how long it remains radioactive.

But how do we utilize the energy?

Processing for recycled fuel

During the reprocessing of the spent fuel, uranium, and plutonium are separated from the other transuranium and fission products. The extracted uranium and plutonium are then separated, which can be converted into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel, and the reactor is run again.

The remaining fission products and transuranic, which are waste, now take up much less space and can be disposed of much more cheaply.

Today, the method is used in Japan, Russia, and France.

In France, it takes place at the Orano la Hague plant [3]. Today, they thus get 17% of their total electricity production is from recycled fuel [4].

Fuel for Future Reactors

It can soon be made even better. The upcoming Generation 4 (Gen IV) reactors, which are around the corner, can also split the transuranium that is otherwise lost during reprocessing and thus use almost all of it.

This applies to types such as Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), Breeder reactors (BR), Integrated Fast Reactors (IFR), and possibly thorium reactors.

The international environmental campaign group RePlanet estimates that if the existing stocks of spent fuel are recycled as fuel for advanced fast reactors, it could generate carbon-free electricity for Europe for up to 1000 years. The remaining fission products will return to a level of radioactivity comparable to the original uranium ore within 200-300 years. This will eliminate the waste problem. Thus, the current geological deposition strategies can be simplified and scaled down [5, 6].

Today’s “waste” is the fuel of the future, and there is no rush to eliminate it.

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