The head of the top U.S. nuclear power group said that reprocessing of nuclear waste, a technique that has not been practiced in the United States for decades because of proliferation and cost concerns, could help address a growing problem building up at nuclear plants across the country. "Reprocessing is a very interesting part of the solution set," Maria Korsnick, the head of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said during an interview last week that will be part of Reuters Events Energy Transition North America. The technology "would be really closing the fuel cycle in a very useful way" because it squeezes more energy from the waste that cannot be used when it is disposed permanently. France and other countries reprocess nuclear waste by breaking it down into uranium and plutonium and reusing it to make new reactor fuel. But nonproliferation experts say militants could target the reprocessing supply chain, which would be far longer in the United States, to seize materials that could be used to make a crude nuclear weapon.
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