Nuclear Reprocessing: an existing alternative energy approach

1. Nuclear Reprocessing: an existing alternative energy approach By: Justin Rearick-Hoefflicker

2. What is nuclear reprocessing? • Nuclear electric power accounts for 8.3% of energy produced in the US.1 • The fuel rods that power nuclear reactors must continually be removed and replaced with new nuclear fuel. • Reprocessing is extracting useful material from spent fuel and using that material as an additional energy source.

3. When does reprocessing occur? “ Neither a recycling/reprocessing facility nor a Federal waste repository is currently approved (licensed) in the United States, and spent fuel is in interim storage. However, the NRC is currently reviewing a license application for a new Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, which would recycle surplus weapon-grade plutonium, remove impurities, and mix it with uranium oxide to form mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel pellets for use in reactor fuel assemblies.”2

4. The process of reprocessing • While many processes exist, the standard method for reprocessing is the PUREX method.3 • PUREX: Plutonium and Uranium Recovery by Extraction • The process extracts uranium and plutonium from the spent nuclear fuel for reuse and leaves the remaining fission products.

5. Why reprocess? • Reprocessing allows for a greater maximization of uranium and plutonium resources that power nuclear energy. • This cuts back on the amount of space needed for waste storage. • Spent fuel rods are stored in nuclear fuel pools or dry cask storage.4 • Reprocessing may be an attractive option because nuclear fuel pool storage capacity will be at or near 100% by 2015.

6. Why reprocess?

7. Why reprocess? 5

8. Why reprocess? • For proponents of energy reform in the US, moving away from a carbon economy might necessitate increased reliance on nuclear energy, at least in the short term. • Reprocessing spent fuel rods would increase nuclear fuel resource utilization and decrease the amount of needed waste storage capacity.

9. What’s reusable? 6

10. Who reprocesses? • Of the world’s confirmed nuclear countries, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Japan, and Russia reprocess spent nuclear fuel.7 • The United States does not currently reprocess spent fuel rods. • Private reprocessing took place in the US for a brief period from 1966 to 1972 at the West Valley, NY facility.

11. Reprocessing and US policy • In 1946, The Atomic Energy Act, 42 U.S.C. §2011 et seq., defined fissionable materials to include plutonium, uranium-235, and other materials determined capable of releasing substantial quantities of energy through nuclear fission. • The Act created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and transferred production and control of fissionable materials from the Manhattan Project to under the AEC.

12. Reprocessing and US policy • In 1954, the Atomic Energy Act was amended to authorize the AEC to license commercial reactors to private actors.8 • In 1957, Chairman of the AEC, Lewis Strauss, announced a program that encouraged private reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. • In 1959, Davidson Chemical Company entered negotiations with the AEC concerning commercial reprocessing.

13. Reprocessing and US policy • In 1963, the AEC-sponsored Experimental Breeder Reactor began operating at the Argonne National Laboratory West.9

14. Reprocessing and US policy • In 1966, Nuclear Fuel Services, formerly Davidson Chemical, received an operating permit for a commercial reprocessing facility for the West Valley Plant, N.Y.10 • The plant operated from 1966 to 1972 reprocessing spent fuel from the defense weapons program; no commercial fuel was ever reprocessed. • The plant closed permanently in 1976 after it was unable to meet regulatory requirements.

15. Reprocessing and US policy • GE was authorized to build a reprocessing facility in Morris, IL in 1967; in 1972, GE halted construction on the facility, instead opting to obtain a license to store spent fuel.11 • In 1970, Allied-General Nuclear Services began constructing a reprocessing plant in Barnwell, SC; in 1981, the project was abandoned as being commercially impracticable. • In 1974, the Energy Reorganization Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5801 et seq., split the AEC into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). • Licensing responsibility for nuclear facilities passed to the NRC.

16. Reprocessing and US policy • In 1976, Exxon applied for a license to construct a reprocessing plant; the NRC took no final action on the license.12 • In October of 1976, President Ford announced that the US would no longer proceed with spent fuel recycling unless the risks of nuclear proliferation could be overcome. • In 1977, President Carter affirmed that the US would suspended commercial reprocessing activity indefinitely.

17. Reprocessing and US policy • The Nuclear Nonproliferation Act, 22 U.S.C. §3201 et seq., established export licensing criteria requiring prior US approval for reprocessing, and a guaranty that no material re-transferred is reprocessed with prior US consent. • In 1981, President Reagan lifts the indefinite ban on commercial reprocessing activities.

18. Reprocessing and US policy • In 1992, President G.H.W. Bush suspended weapons reprocessing in order to supplement US nonproliferation efforts.13 • In 1993, President Clinton affirmed US abstention from reprocessing but issued support for civil nuclear programs in Europe and Japan. • In 1995, President Clinton submitted the US-EURATOM nuclear cooperation agreement to Congress; the Agreement entered into force in 1996.

19. Reprocessing and US policy • In 2001, President Bush recommended that the US should collaborate with its international partners to develop reprocessing technologies that, among other things, are more proliferation resistant.14 • In 2006, the Dept. of Energy (DOE) initiated an engineering scale demonstration of a reprocessing method alleged to be more proliferation resistant, the UREX separation process (Uranium Extraction). • A 2009 report, however, found that UREX and similar alternative reprocessing technologies only contribute to a modest reduction of proliferation risk when compared with the PUREX method.15

20. Reprocessing and US policy • Additionally, in 2006, the DOE requested an expression of interest from domestic and international actors of building a reprocessing facility that meets Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) goals.16 • As of 2009, President Obama ended the environmental review that was to set the ground for resumption of commercial reprocessing in the US.

21. Reprocessing issues • Costs • Depend on various factors including reprocessing method utilized and economies of scale considerations • Govt. cost-sharing is likely preferable in order to attract private capital • Proliferation • Reprocessing has occurred for 40 years without major incident • Cooperation amongst nations is likely the greatest protection against this risk

22. Reprocessing issues • Environmental concerns • Reprocessing does not eliminate all waste from nuclear energy • Issues of storage remain • Something needed beyond Yucca Mountain17

23. Reprocessing Issues • Liability • For private interests to engage in reprocessing activity, especially sending spent fuel aboard to be reprocessed, the US govt. may need to underwrite potential losses associated with reprocessing risks. • Doing so would encourage investment in reprocessing initiatives both at home and abroad.

24. Sources • 1. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Primary Energy Flow by Source and Sector, 2009,http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/pdf/pecss_diagram_2009.pdf (2009). • 2. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Stages of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/stages-fuel-cycle.html (last updated Oct. 20, 2010). • 3. World Nuclear Association, Processing of Used Nuclear Fuel, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html (last updated Oct. 21, 2010). • 4. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel, What We Regulate, http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage.html (last updated Sept. 29, 2010). • 5. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Fuel Pool Capacity, http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/nuc-fuel-pool.html (last updated Oct. 20, 2010). • 6. Supra n. 3. • 7. Safeguarding Reprocessing Facilities: Nuclear Safeguards and the International Atomic Energy Agency, 112-114 http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9530/953007.PDF • 8. Congressional Research Service, Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing: US. Policy Development, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RS22542.pdf (Mar. 27, 2008). • 9. Id. • 10. Id. • 11. Id. • 12. Id. • 13. Id. • 14. Id. • 15. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Proliferation Risk Reduction Study of Alternative Spent Fuel Processing, http://www.bnl.gov/isd/documents/70289.pdf (July 2009). • 16. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Notice of Request for Expression of Interest in a Consolidated Fuel Treatment Center to Support the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, 71 Fed. Reg. 44673-44676 (Aug. 7, 2006). • 17. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Conceptual Design of Yucca Mountain Disposal Plan, http://www.nrc.gov/waste/hlwdisposal/design.html (last updated Oct. 20, 2010).