Construction at MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina

A recent report from the National Center for Policy Analysis examines the growing demand for U.S. energy needs and the requirements that this energy comes from a renewable or carbon-free source.  The National Center for Policy Analysis finds in its report that “to meet this growing demand nuclear energy remains one of the safest and more reliable forms of energy available—it also emits no greenhouse gases…Nuclear power is reliable, sustainable, and clean.”

Reliable?
“Solar and wind require backup from coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants for day-to-day baseload power or for on-demand peaking power.  By contrast, the output from nuclear power plants can be adjusted based on user demand and to keep the electricity grid at maximum efficiency.”

Sustainable?
“An additional supply of nuclear fuel is readily available, after reprocessing, in the more-than-15,000 plutonium pits removed from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons.”*

“An even larger fuel supply can be found in spent fuel rods from existing reactors.  Thus, recycling could provide an almost unlimited supply of nuclear fuel in the United State.  Recycling spent fuel would significantly decrease the problem of nuclear waste disposal.  Reprocessing can also be a boon to local communities and create jobs.”

Clean?
Nuclear power has among the lowest CO2 emissions of all energy sources.  Paul J. Meier of the University of Wisconsin analyzed CO2 emissions from various electric power sources over their entire lifecycle…Meier found that for every gigawatt hour (one billion watt hours) of electricity generated”:
-Coal emits 1,041 tons of CO2 equivalent
-Natural gas emits 622 tons
-Solar emits 39 tons
-Hydropower emits 18 tons
And nuclear power emits only 17 tons of CO2.

Check out the entire report, Nuclear Power and the U.S. Energy Future.

*(AREVA is a partner in the construction of this plant, the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, currently being built in South Carolina to turn these warheads into fuel for a reliable power supply.)

This astute statement is from a piece by Raymond J. Learsy Sunday in The Huffington Post. Learsy’s point is that nuclear energy is a clean reliable energy source—and it also means energy security, jobs, and potential economic base.

We hear much about the job-creating possibilities of new clean energy technologies. They should go forward at full speed. But in nuclear power, we have a preeminent technology being sought out by others and vast knowledge in an energy field that is that the top of the agenda for many nations in a world needing efficient and clean energy solutions. And here we are, going close to nothing in bringing about a nuclear renaissance to our own communities even when it could be at the core of dealing with climate change and a key stimulus to our labor market.

Learsy emphasizes India’s and China’s substantial commitments to new nuclear builds. These two developing countries already have dozens under construction or planned for the next 20 years, which means the United States is steadily losing its leadership in nuclear diplomacy and technological development. The change is happening, and we are falling behind.

A key factor to kick-start building U.S. energy infrastructure is to allow for used fuel recycling, as Learsy puts it:

A first and important step would be to reverse President Carter’s almost unilateral “indefinite deferral” of our plans to reprocess and recycle used nuclear fuel because of concerns that reprocessing could contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. President Carter expected other nationals to follow his lead, but they did not, recognizing Carter’s policy offered no viable path to prevent proliferation.

• More information on Recycling and AREVA’s expertise in the field

Senator Pete DomeniciBy Katherine Berezowskyj

By Katherine Berezowskyj

Today at the National Press Club, Sen. Pete Domenici called on U.S. leadership to really engage and begin work on the question of used nuclear fuel. Domenici declared that “the United States lags in the development and deployment of new nuclear technologies.” In particular, he asserted that:

“America is stalled in thinking about used nuclear fuel. Other countries have developed, or are in advanced stages of developing, strategies to address waste and non-proliferation concerns. Countries like France and Japan have been applying recycling technology to reduce waste volume by 75 percent or more. They have been tackling this challenge for years. We are stuck in policies that are more than 30 years old.”

Domenici called for a waste management strategy to concentrate on the “deployment of a strong domestic capability [that] is necessary to provide the foundation for the United States to participate in any meaningful way in the global management of used nuclear fuel.”

Building recycling infrastructure is important for non-proliferation initiatives like the 123 Agreement with the United Arab Emirates. To develop its own nuclear energy program, the U.A.E. has agreed to not pursue uranium enrichment or to recycle the used fuel. According to Domenici, “this is a model that, with modifications, may work in future agreements with other nations. However, this model requires adequate international infrastructure to responsibly manage used fuel through arrangements for take-back, treatment, recycling, and storage of spent fuel. America’s present domestic policy is out of step with our demonstrated technology and scientific abilities.”

Domenici is challenging the United States to jumpstart our domestic resurgence and provide credible international leadership-”The global resurgence of nuclear power is a reality. We need to recognize that and provide leadership in the areas of non-proliferation and waste treatment.”

You can find the full text of his speech here on the Bipartisan Policy Center site.

“The news release issued today by Friends of the Earth is inaccurate and draws incorrect conclusions about the performance of the MOX lead test assemblies and the overall state of the Department’s mixed oxide fuel program at the Savannah River Site.  Shaw AREVA MOX Services and the National Nuclear Security Administration remain steadfast in our commitment to dispose of surplus weapons plutonium in a manner that results in the safe, affordable, and carbon-free generation of electricity for the benefit of American public.  Not only will the fuel produced at the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility produce enough energy to power one million homes for 50 years, but the disposal of weapon-grade plutonium is a key component of President Obama’s commitment to strengthening international arms control and nonproliferation programs.  In addition, the Department of Energy has evaluated numerous approaches for disposing of surplus weapon-grade plutonium and, simply put, there is no, ‘cheaper, safer and faster alternative.’  This critical project also is important for the Southeastern region of the United States, where it will create jobs and stimulate the local economy.” –NNSA Spokesperson Jennifer Wagner

Based on the feedback from these stories, we can clearly see people have been doing better homework by checking different sources on the internet and deciding for themselves who is the more credible source.  I think Americans are also getting sick and tired of being told they cannot move forward with the most powerful clean energy source ever discovered simply because the government is too incompetent to deal with what amounts to a small warehouse of spent nuclear fuel.

 
We certainly wouldn’t use the word “incompetent,” but we agree that the U.S. government needs to step it up, particularly when it comes to approving and helping put in place a used fuel recycling program like France has successfully operated for decades now.  As we’ve talked about on multiple occasions, recycling offers a solid solution to the used nuclear fuel “problem.”

Because of Japan’s unique place on the world stage – a nation with a large energy appetite but relatively few natural resources – they’ve embarked on a plan to generate fully 40% of their energy from nuclear power and to start their own recycling operations on the islands, instead of sending their used nuclear fuel to France for recycling (as they’d done up until 1998, when they started collecting their own fuel).  They’ve known for a long time that just storing away once-used  
nuclear fuel and calling it “waste” – as we do here in the U.S. – doesn’t make sense.  Not only does recycling get more energy out of the used nuclear fuel, it also reduces the volume of the most dangerous waste by over 60%.

We’re proud to be working with Japan in taking this first step toward a cleaner, carbon-free, independent energy future.  Japan’s example makes it clear that a crucial stepping stone toward sustainability and energy independence – not only in Japan, but here in the U.S. and Canada as well – is expanding the use of nuclear power and putting in place a program to recycle used fuel.

Kyushu is one of the first of AREVA’s agreements to supply MOX fuel to Japan; the latest came in September with Chogoku.

AREVA North America President Jacques Besnainou chatted today with members of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) in a webinar session hosted by NA-YGN’s professional development committee. Jacques spoke informally and answered member’s questions about the need for nuclear recycling capabilities in the U.S. Recycling offers a safe, competitive and sustainable way to deal with used fuel. As we wait for the Department of Energy Blue-Ribbon panel to weigh different options for managing used fuel, the AREVA model for recycling offers a proven solution for conserving resources and creating a more sustainable fuel cycle.

As a follow up to the webinar chat, here are a couple of PDF documents that might be of interest:

• a Boston Consulting group study on “Economic Assessment of Used Nuclear Fuel Management in the United States”
• Recycling Slideshow from Jacques Besnainou

What he misses is the enormous waste – pun intended – involved in the U.S.’s current once-through fuel cycle.  He briefly mentions recycling deep down in the article…

Spent fuel is an “opportunity” because it contains un-used energy, said Lisa Price, vice president for the fuel business of GE.

Recycling used fuel into new fuel for reactors is done in a few nations such as France. It’s one solution for the “final storage” of radioactive material, said a spokeswoman at Areva, the biggest reactor builder.

…but doesn’t place enough emphasis on the importance of recycling used nuclear fuel.  We don’t throw cans, bottles, or paper in the trash can anymore, because we realize how wasteful it is to throw away something that could be recycled into more cans, bottles, and paper.  Used nuclear fuel is the same way: isn’t the solution to the massive quantities of used nuclear fuel – fuel that still has a lot of useful energy left in it – to reprocess it and get more energy out of it?

AREVA’s recycling process – which has been proven over decades in France – pulls the useful energy out of that used nuclear fuel, and reduces the rest of the high-level waste to compact and vitrified (glass) logs, which can be stored safely away from the environment.  As AREVA’s EVP Dr. Alan Hanson wrote in his op-ed in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer a couple of weeks ago, recycling could divide “by at least four” the amount of material that would need to be placed in long-term storage.  In addition to reducing the amount of waste – and putting it in a much safer vitrified configuration – recycling spent fuel would give us more useful fuel for nuclear reactors, fuel that’s already being safely used in many countries including France, China, and Japan.

Jeremy van Loon is right to point out that if nuclear power is going to be a part of the world’s long-term carbon-free energy solution, we need a more sustainable solution for managing used fuel.  But we can’t – and shouldn’t – gloss over a process that can
cut the volume of waste for disposal by a factor of four and produce even more useful material to use in reactors.  Recycling absolutely must be a part of our nuclear energy future – and we’re proud to be leading the way in innovation for better, more efficient recycling solutions.

AREVA EVP Dr. Alan Hanson, who’s in charge of our recycling efforts in the U.S., has a great editorial up in the Cleveland Plain Dealer making the case for recycling nuclear fuel as a major part of America’s long-term nuclear energy plans, and pointing out the need to recycle used fuel instead of just letting it all go to waste:

Recycling nuclear fuel is a proven solution that makes waste management easier, conserves natural resources, is cost competitive and reduces proliferation concerns.

Recycling used nuclear fuel reduces the volume of high-level waste for disposal in a repository such as the one envisioned at Yucca Mountain. Only 4 percent of used fuel is high-level waste; the remaining 96 percent can be recycled and reused as fuel for nuclear plants.

Check out the rest of Dr. Hanson’s op-ed over at the Plain-Dealer‘s site.