Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Policy Briefing on Nuclear Reprocessing: Is the U.S. Missing Out on the Nuclear Waste Solution?

by Leonor Tomero [contact information]

August 10, 2009

On July 20, 2009, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and Physicians for Social Responsibility co-hosted a briefing on nuclear reprocessing. The briefing featured Dr. Frank von Hippel, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials; Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center; and Dr. Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Key materials from the briefing included:

Review of DOE's Nuclear Energy Research and Development Program: Minority Opinion: Dissenting Statement of Gilinsky and Macfarlane

PSR: Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors

UCS: Reprocessing and Nuclear Waste Factsheet

Reprocessing in the U.S.: A Waste of Time (Lyman PowerPoint)

Interim Dry-cask Storage vs. Spent-fuel Reprocessing (von Hippel PowerPoint)

Below is a summary of the panelists’ remarks.

FRANK VON HIPPEL

What is Spent Fuel?

Spent fuel is the byproduct of nuclear power production. The fuel has been sitting in reactor pools and, after 20+ years, is cool enough that it does not have to be cooled with water. It consists of U-238 nuclei which have split and various other isotopes. Some particles have turned into plutonium, which is where the controversy lies.

Before 1974, it was believed that light water reactors were temporary and that soon, reactors 100 times more efficient would be developed. There was a fear that the uranium supply was not sustainable for nuclear power consumption, so the United States pushed for the construction of plutonium breeder reactors. In 1974, India was the first non-nuclear weapons state to use separated plutonium to make a nuclear weapon.

Domestic Debate

Presidents Ford and Carter both determined that uranium shortage was not a pressing issue and that breeder reactors would not be an economical alternative to existing nuclear power production. President Reagan reversed this policy and let the industry self-regulate.

Since Yucca Mountain has not been approved, nuclear fuel facilities don’t have anywhere to put spent fuel. Companies are for reprocessing as long as they don’t have to pay for it. In 2006, President Bush proposed building a $40 billion reprocessing facility, but Congress shot it down due to the enormous price tag and historical taboo of reprocessing. The Obama administration is skeptical of reprocessing and will only approve research and development.

International Debate

Reactors all over the world are accumulating spent fuel in their pools. France is the main international advocate of reprocessing. In France, spent fuel from reactors is centrally stored at La Hague. At La Hague, fission material is stored in liquid form in tanks. This is a very unstable and dangerous form of waste. If released, the fallout would be 100 times that of Chernobyl. The French have installed anti-aircraft missiles around the site to protect it from attack.

Japan is trying to emulate France’s compound, but Japan’s program is much more expensive, at nearly $1 billion per reactor.

The U.K. has been accumulating spent fuel at reactor sites. Today, the U.K. has more plutonium than the United States. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is now consulting on what to do with U.K.’s excess stores.

The Proliferation Factor

After India’s 1974 nuclear test, the United States relinquished reprocessing. The most sustainable U.S. argument against other states’ requests for the technology has been “Since we don’t reprocess, you don’t need to either.”

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)

President Bush proposed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) in 2004. It is a program in which nuclear weapons states and Japan would reprocess for non-nuclear weapon states so that they would not pursue reprocessing themselves.

France, the U.K., and Russia all tried to reprocess for other states such as Belgium and Germany, but no client-states renewed their contracts. After 20 years, client states began to return high level waste. As it turns out, high level waste is the same political problem as spent fuel. No one wants to bear the cost of storage. The cost of reprocessing and then reabsorbing high level waste was ultimately 10 times that of spent fuel disposal. Casks of reprocessed fuel are far less dangerous to a population than an existing reactor

Reprocessing Risks

Reprocessing is more dangerous than pool storage of spent fuel. Reprocessing is 10 to 20 times more expensive than direct disposal of waste. Theft of separated plutonium is easier than theft of casks. Reprocessing provides a cover for states seeking to separate plutonium for weapons.

Reprocessing Benefits

Reprocessing provides an interim offset site for storage of nuclear waste. AREVA and other development companies could reap lucrative contracts to build plants in the United States.

HENRY SOKOLSKI

The most compelling arguments against reprocessing include: 1) a security benefit of reprocessing cannot be established; and 2) the economics of reprocessing don’t hold up. A comprehensive program can’t be accomplished without the government taking control of the entire nuclear power industry. Meanwhile, the only funding solution the government proposed has been loan guarantees. The bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism recommended that the government place a moratorium on reprocessing.

The Bush administration wanted to end fuel production in other countries because, depending on the analyst you ask, a country with fuel production capabilities is months, weeks, or days away from a bomb. This is too close to weaponization for the IAEA to possibly safeguard.

In February 2004, President Bush stated that reprocessing is unnecessary for non-nuclear weapons states when nuclear weapons states and Japan can reprocess for them. Current dry cask storage will last 500 to 1,000 years, so it is not yet a problem that there is no designated geologic repository like Yucca Mountain.

Justification

Current Department of Energy (DOE) reactor designs employ plutonium-based fuels, and the new generation of reactors will be even more expensive than these. If reprocessing begins, it will be easier to lock in funding and plans for these DOE proposals.

Reactors will be built if the cost comes down, whether people want them or not. But Iran could use our reprocessing as an argument for its own program (Jordan and South Korea also want to reprocess). If something as simple as reprocessing can’t be contained, global zero will never be a reachable goal because reprocessing seriously undercuts nonproliferation. Reprocessing technology constitutes a breakout capability.

EDWIN LYMAN

The hidden cost of reprocessing is the waste generation that it produces. The United States is in a holding pattern of waste disposal, but reprocessing is a waste of time.

AREVA and other companies say that reprocessing simplifies nuclear waste disposal by a factor of four or five, but U.S. studies contradict this. Reprocessing actually increases radioactive waste. More waste streams are created from reprocessing than if spent fuel were directly disposed of in a facility like Yucca Mountain.

Reprocessing would create multiple waste streams: High Level Waste, Low Level Waste (A, B, C), and Greater Than Class C Level Waste (GTCC). Reprocessing would produce Low Level Waste at a factor of 160 times that currently produced through the once-through fuel cycle system. Reprocessing also produces significant amounts of GTCC waste, which contains radioactive isotopes. This means it could not be safely stored with Low Level Waste and the DOE would be responsible for it.

After 50 years of reprocessing, seven times the waste of spent fuel from the once-through process would result. Eventually, Low Level Waste would equal spent fuel in volume. There would only be a 23-24% reduction in high level waste.