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For example, additional steps in the process could convert the long-lived waste into elements with shorter half-lives, slashing the time this waste needs to be stored from more than 300,000 years to just centuries.Īnd the plutonium generated could be spiked with heat-producing and radioactive elements to make it too hot to handle, they argue. Supporters of the generation IV reactors claim that new forms of reprocessing can be developed that avoid these drawbacks. Reactors also have to be substantially modified to burn MOX, and MOX itself can only be partially burnt, meaning that a lot of the fuel still ends up as waste. Only a small volume of spent fuel would be left over as waste.īut conventional reprocessing not only generates weapons-grade plutonium, it is expensive. So if these long-lived elements could be extracted from spent fuel, all of the uranium and plutonium could be recovered and reused. Reprocessing is attractive because it could cut the final amount of waste produced - 96% of spent fuel consists of uranium and plutonium, whereas troublesome long-lived radionuclides account for less than 1%. Japan, China and Russia also have reprocessing plans.

This process is most-developed in France, which operates a reprocessing facility at La Hague, and at Sellafield in the United Kingdom. To counter plutonium proliferation, the United States, for example, has historically refrained from reprocessing waste, and discouraged other nations from doing so.īut four of the six proposed generation IV reactors would turn this doctrine on its head, as they would require reprocessing, albeit in a form that is supposed to be ‘proliferation resistant’.Ĭonventional reprocessing recovers plutonium and uranium from waste, and these can be burnt in reactors as mixed oxide fuel (MOX). Reprocessing nuclear waste is controversial because it separates out plutonium, a key ingredient of advanced nuclear weapons.

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