[ RadSafe ] NPT, Reprocessing & Mining Issues

Fri Oct 3 11:16:33 CDT 2008

It is, of course, entirely appropriate to look at reprocessing anew, and
see how the advances of the last 40+ years can be applied.  I suspect
that both technical and philosophical improvements will lead to a vastly
better system than would have been possible if President Carter had not
pulled the plug on civilian reprocessing (I believe he did it as a
payoff to environmentalist factions for their support, and not for the
stated non-proliferation reasons.  Indeed, the USA reneging on our part
of the NPT to take back and reprocess fuel freed other countries to
build their own reprocessing facilities, and be able to separate out
plutonium for weapons).  

There are several points worthy of being kept in mind as the
reprocessing debate starts up again, and we, as rad experts, get asked
to comment (at least, I hope we get asked to comment.  Otherwise, it
will be the same old thing of activists who truly believe that one can
substitute passion for knowledge in trying to find the correct path).

(1)  Reprocessing of spent fuel has been going on for decades, both here
and abroad.  A half dozen or more countries reprocess, either to recycle
fuel or to get plutonium and possibly other isotopes.  In the US, the
Navy has been reprocessing its spent fuel, almost from the start.  It
may be economical to do single time through if the fuel is enriched to a
couple of percent, as is usual for commercial fuel, but when it is up to
93% enriched, it's worth recovering the uranium from fuel that has too
many neutron poisons to continue using.
(2)  There is a lot of pretty old spent fuel out there to start with.
Fresh spent fuel is hot enough (both rad and thermal) to present some
real challenges.  Stuff that has been sitting around for 40, 50 years
(by the time a reprocessing facility gets going) will be much easier to
handle.
(3)  In addition to the value of the recovered uranium, and possibly
other isotopes, there is non-trivial value in freeing up space at the
various reactors.  I don't know how much a utility would be willing to
pay for more space to put new spent fuel, but I'd be happy to have it.  

Ultimately, I don't believe that resistance to reprocessing in this
country will matter, globally.  In a couple of decades the Chinese may
well be in the market to buy spent fuel, cheap, to reprocess for use in
their reactors. 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Philip Egidi
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 3:13 PM
To: Dan W McCarn; Daren' 'Perrero; radsafe at radlab.nl
Cc: Ken' 'Peterson
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] NPT, Reprocessing & Mining Issues

Good points all, however, I would add that uranium is down to about
$53.00 per pound this week, down from about $65 just in June.  Compare
that to $138/lb in July 2007 (thanks to the speculators).  This is the
slowest boom I have seen.  Add to that all the uncertainty about credit
in the markets, etc., and it becomes less likely that financing at
affordable rates will be available in the short term.

Reprocessing will require serious research and investment since the
previous methods in the US yielded copious amounts of high level mixed
waste, and considerable amounts of pollution.  Until it can be
demonstrated that it can be done safely in this country, reprocessing
will have an uphill battle.  The up front costs to design and build the
infrastructure without a guarantee of success makes it highly risky in
the market place.  

Of course, (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) since it appears we are
going towards a socialized democracy (at least this week), perhaps the
government would be willing to spread those risks out among all the
taxpayers for "the common good."  Now if we could just get them to fix,
I mean subsidize, Social Security, our ageing infrastructure, and
transportation industries, we'd be set. 

While you point out examples of perceived foot dragging on licensing, in
Colorado we have fixed time frames in Statute to turn uranium milling
applications around in a timely manner.  We have no control over the
timing of the appeals process, so that may extend time frames.  Methinks
the market is the primary obstacle, not State regulators (of course I am
a little biased on that since I are one).
Phil Egidi

>>> Dan W McCarn <hotgreenchile at gmail.com> 10/2/2008 3:27 PM >>>
Dear Daren:

Yes, that is my recollection as well.  I think that Carter's ban on
reprocessing was intended to send a signal to the rest of the world
regarding the NPT and non-proliferation, but also that the cost of a
full nuclear fuel cycle (as apposed to once-through) did not make it an
economically attractive possibility. Recall also that U-Nat (U3O8)
peaked at $40 / lb U3O8 which was considered almost breakeven for a full
fuel cycle.
Since the price of U-Nat fell to about $7.50 / lb U3O8 shortly after
1980, there was no chance in the 80s or 90s through 2003 to reconsider
the economics of a full fuel cycle.  Perhaps in light of the current
long-term contract price of U3O8 is now about $80 / lb, some economic
consideration will be again given to reprocessing fuel.

Inventory, Licensing & Politics:
An argument can be perhaps made that the artificial scarcity of uranium
makes reprocessing a viable possibility in the near future.  Given the
depleted state of inventories, by artificial scarcity, I mean that the
licensing and permitting times for new mining operations have been
unreasonably long lately; permitting a single exploration well this
summer in Mexico took over 3 months.  This issue has been, in part,
reflected by the 6th US Appeals Court this summer regarding NRC's
ability to issue a uranium mining license, but has a political backdrop
that should make potential investors uneasy at the long projected times
until production (positive cash flow) can reasonably be achieved.  State
officials, however, seem to have taken advantage of the uncertainty by
delaying very basic and normal aspects of prospection.  Some of you may
recall the 6th Appeals Court decision regarding the NRC and the State of
Utah about an interim storage facility.  The court then considered
Utah's requirements excessive and that the NRC had full authority to
license and regulate.

State officials have also delayed energy exploration in other sectors as
well including oil shale by tying-up exploration permits.

Since fuel destined for Yucca Mountain can still be safely retrieved for
the next 50+ years or more, reprocessing is still a viable option when
the economics become favorable.

Dan ii

Dan W McCarn 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Perrero, Daren
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 2:59 PM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Cc: Peterson, Ken
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] RE: SCIENTIST PRESIDENT

Wasn't it during Carter's administration that, via the SALT talks, his
directive was issued that there would be no reprocessing of nuclear
fuel?

Daren Perrero
The opinions expressed are mine, all mine....
I'm with the government, I'm here to help you.
Daren.Perrero(a)Illinois.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Edmond Baratta
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 2:28 PM
To: Peterson, Ken; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] RE: SCIENTIST PRESIDENT

I think Jimmy was a Nuclear Engineer.

Ed Baratta

edmond0033 at comcast.net 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peterson, Ken" <KPeterson at MarinetteMarine.com>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 9:56 AM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] RE: SCIENTIST PRESIDENT

I don't think that is the answer:  Jimmy Carter was a physicist....

And so is Andrea Merkel, and while I consider her an order of magnitude 
brighter than either Presidential Candidate (and 10 orders of magnitude 
brighter than either VP), I don't know if you can call the current state
of 
Germany Nirvana - except maybe during Oktoberfest....

Ken Peterson
LCS Sustainment
Marinette Marine Corp.
1600 Ely St.
Marinette, WI 54143
715-735-9341

________________________________________________________________________
_

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 06:07:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Sam Iverstine <sam_iverstine at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [RadSafe]Mission to Mars---Fission Propulsion
To: radsafe at radlab.nl 
Message-ID: <3389.91310.qm at web50108.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Space exploration was the main impetus that got myself and many other 
scientists interested in science [I actually thought becoming a health 
physicist with nuclear navy background would qualifiy me to do work on 
spacecraft]. Even if the space exploration challenge is pie in the sky,
it 
still motivates me to this day to do better science. Perhaps
over-extended 
space exploration will motivate a generation of scientists and the US
will 
one day have a scientist president (vs. lawyer) and we will all achive 
nirvanna and have Plato's philosopher-king as our leader.

Cheers!

Sam Iverstine, MS, CHP

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