Letters

摘要

The magnitude of the claimed benefits of a fast-neutron reactor cycle-in the area of nuclear waste disposal-has grown remarkably in recent years, although I know of no technical advancement that justifies such a growth. In writing about my observation, I will point to a commonly used comparison that I believe has contributed greatly but erroneously to the claimed benefits and give examples where more clarity in communications could have made less likely the exaggerations of the claimed benefits. The greatest potential benefit I have heard claimed was made in the report "What a Waste: How Fast-Fission Power Can Provide Clean Energy from Nuclear Waste" by Mark Lynas (2023; published by RePlanet),1 which suggested that use of fast reactors might remove altogether the need for deep geological disposal of the wastes generated in such a cycle. In stark contrast, "CURE: Clean Use of Reactor Energy," a 1990 technical report from Westinghouse Hanford Company and Pacific Northwest Laboratory, merely concluded that the use of such reactors might make it easier to assess the performance of the repository system needed to dispose of the generated wastes.2 That is a huge difference in the magnitude of claimed benefits.