Reprocessing Spent Nuclear Fuel February 9, 2017 Eric Jelinski, M. Eng. P. Eng. President of Environmentalists For Nuclear – Canada, EFN-Canada Reprocessing technologies for spent nuclear fuel do exist. The French do reprocessing, and so did the US until some comedian politicians stopped it. Reprocessing is being considered today by both the Chinese and Korea. Russia has been doing reprocessing for a long time. Furthermore, research that colleagues and I are doing, is finding ways to improve efficiency and economic viability of reprocessing. There are two pivotal issues: 1) The nuclear program is going to grow…not necessarily because of the ‘glowbull’ manmade global warming scare fiasco, but because of air quality, ie. NOx, quality of life and carrying capacity of the earth. 2) Until we convert a lot of the entire fleet of existing LWR’s, and Gen 3 Candu’s to Fast Spectrum Reactors in a timely fashion, we will be creating way more spent fuel than what can be safely stored for the 60 to 100 year life of above ground concrete canisters at the stations.
Prince Edward Island, Canada