Three Rs of Spent Fuel Management: Recycle Spent Fuel, Reuse the Energy, Reduce Plutonium

摘要

“Imagine filling up your gas tank with 10 gallons of gas,driving just far enough to burn a half gallon and discardingthe rest. Then, repeat.” This is how Pacific National NuclearLaboratory (PNNL) explained how the US nuclear industryis currently working by not recycling spent fuel. Spent nuclearfuel from commercial power plants still has 95% of itspotential energy remaining to produce electricity. However,rather than recycling that energy, the US plans to dispose ofthe spent nuclear fuel in a geologic repository because theprocess to separate the usable from unusable parts of thespent fuel is very complicated (and politically and sociallyunacceptable in the US).