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4 iv. Reprocessing
This section looks at:
A. What is Reprocessing?
Reprocessing is the most dangerous and polluting part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Reprocessing does two things: (1) it
recovers the unused
U-235 in the spent fuel, which is then sent back into the fuel cycle
again, from conversion, to enrichment, to fabrication to a nuclear
power plant; (2) it also recovers plutonium - arguably the most toxic
substance created by man - from the spent fuel, which can be used in
nuclear weapons or used in mixed oxide fuel (MOX fuel) to power fast
breeder reactors (FBRs).
FBRs have failed due to their enormous technical complexity and economic unviability. After reprocessing, a range of highly dangerous long-lived fissile materials remain, meaning that reprocessing doesn't get rid of the need for long-lived nuclear waste disposal.
Reprocessing involves dissolving the spent nuclear fuel elements in concentrated nitric acid, which chemically separates the unused uranium and plutonium from other high level fission products. Reprocessing therefore results in high level liquid waste rather than solid waste. Highly radioactive liquid waste presents a whole set of different problems to resolve compared to solid waste.
Plutonium is the most common fuel in nuclear weapons. Along with enrichment, reprocessing is one of two ways in which the nuclear fuel cycle can be used to make weapons grade nuclear fuel.
The US used to have three commercial scale reprocessing plants but, under President Jimmy Carter, a decision was made to close them down. The US held grave concerns for the proliferation of nuclear weapons using plutonium separated in reprocessing plants. India used reprocessing technology to produce fuel for its first nuclear tests.
However, President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is about restoring the reprocessing industry in the US, using different technology - yet to be developed - that claims to be "proliferation resistant". Many are sceptical that GNEP can produce 'proliferation resistant' technology.
The UK and France hold about 72% of the world's reprocessing capacity. Japan holds 16%, Russia 7% and India 5%.
B. Waste
Reprocessing deals with some of the most dangerous materials ever created by man: plutonium and a range of actinides. These wastes can be very long lived. Plutonium, for example, has a half life of 24,400 years.
The environmental record of the two major reprocessing plants in the world has been woeful:
UK - Sellafield: Since 1952, Sellafield has been dumping radioactive waste into the Irish Sea. This sea is now considered one of the most radioactive bodies of water in the world. Fish, shellfish, and sea plants in the Irish Sea contain substantial amounts of radiation. This is an environmental problem as well as a trade problem. Irish fishermen often catch mutated fish that cannot be sold. Sellafield is developing nuclear waste clean-up facilities, but they come at great financial cost. See: www.american.edu/...
The
Irish Government initiated legal action in 2001 and 2003 to try to stop
the operation of a new reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The Norwegian
government has accused Britain of ruining its lucrative lobster
industry by failing to stop radioactive discharges from Sellafield. In
2003, Norway and Ireland took their complaints to the OSPAR Commission1.
See: news.bbc.co.uk/...
See: www.bellona.org/...
See: www.guardian.co.uk/...
France - La Hauge: Due to the secrecy surrounding the French Government’s management of nuclear waste, there is little public information available about the world’s largest operating reprocessing facility at La Hague along the Normandy coast in France.
In
1997 the British Medical Journal published a study by two French
scientists, Dominique Pobel and Jean-François Viel, about the health
effects of the La Hague plant in France. The report warned of an
increased risk of leukaemia for children who played regularly on
beaches near the nuclear La Hague reprocessing plant:
See: www.globalsecurity.org/...
See: naturalscience.com/...
See: bmj.bmjjournals.com/...
C. Weapons
Most of the world's nuclear weapons are made from plutonium. The threat of a new nuclear weapons arms race is very real. The Doomsday Clock has again been moved to 5 minutes to midnight by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomics Scientists. On 17 January 2007, they said:
"We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth." See: http://www.thebulletin.org/...
D. Nuclear Accidents
UK - Sellafield: On April 19, 2005,a major spill of 83,000 litres of radioactive waste was discovered at the THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The highly radioactive liquid waste had leaked from a cracked pipe into a huge stainless steel-lined concrete sump chamber built to contain leaks. The reprocessing plant was closed and responsible administrators disciplined.
See: www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/...
See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
1999, Tokaimura, Japan: on 30th September, an accident occurred which set off a chain reaction at the Tokaimura reprocessing plant. The chain reaction continued for about 20 hours before it could be stopped. The most contaminated worker died of severe radiation sickness nearly 3 months later, on 21 Dec 1999. A second worker died on 27 April 2000. 68 other people were irradiated at lower levels. See: http://www.wise-uranium.org/eftokc.html
E. Nuclear Terrorism
A January 2006 report commissioned by Greenpeace International revealed that about 2 million people could be killed by a terrorist strike targeting the storage tanks at the Sellafield nuclear facility (which holds considerable quantities of high level radioactive waste).
Source: www.greenpeace.org.uk/...
1. OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic
