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| | | published Monday, November 17, 2008 | 867 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel too risky
Saturday, November 15, 2008 3:20 AM
By Bob Alvarez
The
push for new nuclear reactors became a top-tier issue in the
presidential race. Yet one aspect of the debate received little
attention: reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. This issue is especially
relevant to Ohio, where the U.S. Energy Department has considered
locating such a facility near Portsmouth.
The idea is to
recycle the uranium and plutonium used in nuclear reactors. Spent fuel
has to be treated to chemically separate these elements from other
highly radioactive byproducts. Proponents say that reprocessing used
reactor fuel is vital to the growth of nuclear power because it would
reduce waste that needs to be stored deep underground.
Sen.
John McCain, a prominent supporter of nuclear reprocessing, pointed to
France, where he said that reprocessing has been going on "for many,
many years without any accidents or difficulties or problems."
Yet behind the rhetoric are stark facts:
•
A reprocessing facility would become a dump for the largest, most
lethal source of high-heat radioactivity in the United States and
possibly the world.
• Reprocessing does not significantly reduce the amount of radioactive waste that has to be buried.
• The cost of nuclear recycling rivals the recent bailout of Wall Street investment banks.
The
first major problem with reprocessing is that it doesn't come close to
solving the challenge of nuclear waste. In fact, as a reprocessing
facility chops and dissolves used fuel rods, it releases thousands of
times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear reactors and
generates several dangerous waste streams. Denmark, Norway and Ireland
have sought the closure of reprocessing plants in France and Great
Britain because of radioactive waste washing up on their shores. Just a
few grams of waste would deliver lethal radiation doses in a matter of
seconds in a crowded area.
For three decades, we've been
trying to clean up the results of Cold War-era reprocessing . Tens of
millions of gallons of high-level radioactive wastes from the recycling
of plutonium and uranium for nuclear weapons remain in gigantic, aging,
leaky tanks.
Over almost 30 years, the Department of Energy
has spent billions of dollars to process less than 1 percent of these
wastes for disposal.
In 2006, Nuclear Energy Institute
President Frank L. Bowman said, "Nuclear power plants will always
create long-lived waste byproducts that require long-term management."
The
second major problem with reprocessing is that it makes the
proliferation challenge worse. While the plutonium in spent nuclear
fuel has potential energy value, it also is a nuclear explosive,
requiring extraordinary safeguards against theft and diversion. Unlike
plutonium bound up in spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium does not
have radiation significant enough to deter theft and bomb making.
Over
the past 50 years, there have been several unsuccessful efforts to use
plutonium as a fuel, including two reactor melt-downs in the United
States. Of the 370 metric tons of plutonium extracted from spent fuel
over the past several decades, about one-third has been used. About 250
tons of plutonium sit at reprocessing facilities around the world --
enough to fuel more than 40,000 nuclear weapons.
The third major
problem with reprocessing is the price tag. In 1996, the National
Academy of Sciences completed an extensive study on the feasibility of
recycling nuclear fuel and found it would cost up to $700 billion in
2008 dollars. Just two years ago, the academy reiterated its findings,
saying, "There is no economic justification for going forward with this
program at anything approaching a commercial scale."
The French
government has yet to establish a disposal site for the large amount of
radioactive detritus piling up at its reprocessing facility in La Hague
-- something that threatens to unravel public support.
Waste,
proliferation and cost: Three strikes, and reprocessing is out. We are
better off investing in renewable energy and conservation, rather than
pouring billions of dollars into this costly and very risky endeavor.
Bob
Alvarez is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and was
an adviser to the secretary of energy during the Clinton administration.
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