Why would you bury fuel that you've only harvested 1% of the energy from? If you're not gonna build reprocessing facilities, sell it to France or Russia.
I don't think exporting waste to different countries were only 10% of the fuel is recycled is a responsible way to manage nuclear waste.
Also there are nuclear proliferation concerns when reprocessing nuclear fuel. I for one would not want to supply Russia with possible raw materials for nuclear weapons.
As for reprocessing, storage is in competition with newly mined fuel. As mining becomes more expensive or nuclear demand increases, there's greater impetus to recycle more fuel. Conversely, if there's fewer plants consuming the fuel or more mines opening, recycling projects die.
The more plants close, the less waste you're gonna get reprocessed.
Russia already has 40,000 nukes, they're not a proliferation risk.
"Russia already has 40,000 nukes, they're not a proliferation risk."
That's true.
In response to your mining argument:
"The known uranium resources represent a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so the significant increase in exploration effort that we are now seeing could readily double the known economic resources. On the basis of analogies with other metal minerals, a doubling of price from price levels in 2007 could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time."
So there's enough cheap enough utanium to go around and no need for the industry to recycle spent fuel.
So there's enough cheap enough utanium to go around and no need for the industry to recycle spent fuel.
That is where the supply and demand equation is right now. When the supply was lower before the 90s, the equation favored recycling, and if we build more plants to drive up price, it will favor it again.
Do you have any sourced to back up this claim? Because as I read the cited article the minable uranium supply is far greater than the demand now and in the foreseeable future.
Why would you bury fuel that you've only harvested 1% of the energy from? If you're not gonna build reprocessing facilities, sell it to France or Russia.
I don't think exporting waste to different countries were only 10% of the fuel is recycled is a responsible way to manage nuclear waste.
Also there are nuclear proliferation concerns when reprocessing nuclear fuel. I for one would not want to supply Russia with possible raw materials for nuclear weapons.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
As for reprocessing, storage is in competition with newly mined fuel. As mining becomes more expensive or nuclear demand increases, there's greater impetus to recycle more fuel. Conversely, if there's fewer plants consuming the fuel or more mines opening, recycling projects die.
The more plants close, the less waste you're gonna get reprocessed.
Russia already has 40,000 nukes, they're not a proliferation risk.
That's true.
In response to your mining argument:
"The known uranium resources represent a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so the significant increase in exploration effort that we are now seeing could readily double the known economic resources. On the basis of analogies with other metal minerals, a doubling of price from price levels in 2007 could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time."
So there's enough cheap enough utanium to go around and no need for the industry to recycle spent fuel.
That is where the supply and demand equation is right now. When the supply was lower before the 90s, the equation favored recycling, and if we build more plants to drive up price, it will favor it again.
Do you have any sourced to back up this claim? Because as I read the cited article the minable uranium supply is far greater than the demand now and in the foreseeable future.