Plutonium Reprocessing and Recycling

1
Plutonium Reprocessing and Recycling

• Ivan Oelrich
• Federation of American Scientists
• Airlie House
• 9 January 2006
• 202-454-4682

2
Legislative Status

• FY 2006 Energy Water Appropriations bill
  provides
• 80M for reprocessing RD (10M more than
  administration request.)
• 50M for design, site selection, and
  implementation of first reprocessing facility
  (not requested by Administration).
• Estimates for next years request range from
  250M to 400M.

3
FY 2006 EW Bill Rushes Reprocessing

• 5M to each of four sites just to prepare
  proposals.
• DOE program plan by March 2006
• Begins site competition in June 2006
• Conceptual design in FY2006
• Engineering scale demonstration in FY2007
• Select technology in 2007
• Begin construction in 2010

4
Three Nuclear Fuel Cycles

• Once through thermal reactors (current
  approach)
• Recovery of plutonium for one additional pass
  through thermal reactors
• Repeated reprocessing and recycling of uranium,
  plutonium, and other transuranics in fast-neutron
  reactors

5
Three Options for Nuclear Fuel Cycle
6
Why Reprocess and Recycle?

• Original reason (1940s-1970s)
• Believed demand for nuclear power would be far
  greater than it turned out to be
• Believed world uranium reserves were far smaller
  than they turned out to be
• Current reason
• Reduce amount of nuclear waste
• Given the uncertainties surrounding the Yucca
  Mountain license application process
• Additional uranium energy secondary

7
Problems?

• The physics of the Argonne proposal is correct.
  It all works well in theory.
• The problems are in the economics and engineering.

8
Economics

• Reprocessing is expensive, wont make economic
  sense unless uranium is over ten times more
  expensive than it is today (or waste disposal is
  much more expensive or impossible).
• No current forecasts foresee these uranium prices
  for decades into the future
• Recycling requires constructing a whole new fleet
  of fast neutron reactors.
• Burning only 1 of the log is not a good
  analogy for current thermal reactors. Even
  free energy costs money to extract, whether
  hydro, or solar, or wind, or U-238.

9
Engineering

• Argonne proposals are not mature technology
• Electro-pyro reprocessing is in the laboratory
  demonstration phase, not commercialized.
• Current French reprocessing does not reduce waste
  burden
• Past experience is not promising
• Fast neutron reactors have been built, and
  abandoned in the past.
• Costs of reprocessing are high and always higher
  than estimated.
• Major environmental problems with existing
  reprocessing facilities.
• What is new?

10
Reprocessing and Proliferation

• Argonne National Lab claims counter-proliferation
  as a particular virtue
• Partly true if unproven technology pans out, not
  true with proven technology
• Even if pyro-reprocessing works, nothing prevents
  further extraction of pure plutonium
• For three decades US has argued against
  reprocessing by other countries, we lose moral
  authority.

11
Whats the Rush?

• Urgency appears to be due to fear of failure to
  open Yucca Mountain
• But proposal will not solve that problem, wont
  be ready in time.
• Huge political resistance to Yucca, but there
  will be resistance to new fast reactors, too.
• Level of technical development does not warrant
  site selection and demonstration plants

12
What to do?

• If Yucca opens use once through fuel cycle and
  store spent fuel in Yucca
• If Yucca doesnt open continue what we do
  today, decade long spent fuel storage in pools,
  followed by above ground storage. Dry cask
  storage, if done right, could hold waste for up
  to an additional century.
• Continue research if promising, but not
  development and demonstration, on reprocessing
  and fast reactors.
• THERE IS NO RUSH TO REPROCESS!

13
Summary of Reprocessing Concerns

• Technology unproven
• Wont save money
• Requires new reactors
• Wont be ready in time to avoid Yucca
• Does not prevent proliferation
• Decision can be deferred

14
Main References

• For
• Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste, Hannum, Marsh,
  Stanford, Scientific American
• Toward a Sustainable Nuclear Future Closing
  the Fuel Cycle, Finck, Argonne Briefing
• Against
• The Economics of Reprocessing Versus Direct
  Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, Bunn, Holdren,
  Fetter, van der Zwaan, Nuclear Technology
• Is U.S. Reprocessing Worth the Risk? Fetter,
  von Hippel, Arms Control Today