Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Spent nuclear fuel is anything but waste

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Spent nuclear fuel is anything but waste

February 20, 2011

Failure to pursue a program for recycling spent nuclear fuel has put the U.S. far behind other countries and represents a missed opportunity to enhance the nation's energy security and influence other countries, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Sunday.

Dale Klein, Ph.D., Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Texas System, said largely unfounded concerns and "long-held myths" about the reprocessing of spent fuel have prevented the U.S. from tapping into an extremely valuable resource.
Spent nuclear fuel, which includes some plutonium, often is inaccurately referred to as waste, Klein said.
"It is not waste," he said. "The waste is in our failure to tap into this valuable and abundant domestic source of clean energy in a systematic way. That's something we can ill-afford to do."
Klein, who also serves as an associate director at UT Austin's Energy Institute, made his remarks Sunday morning at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.