GUEST COMMENTARY Spent Fuel Valuable Resource

By CECIL O. COGBURN

Posted: November 9, 2009 at 6:21 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — President Barack Obama and Congress should act forthwith to re-establish nuclear recycling in the United States so that valuable uranium and plutonium in spent fuel can be used again to produce electricity.

Contrary to myths about nuclear energy, spent, or used, fuel is not waste that should be disposed of. It can be chemically reprocessed to produce a benign mixed-oxide fuel for use in a reactor to generate more electricity. More than 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel is now stored at nuclear power plant sites around the country. The Arkansas Nuclear One plant alone has about 1,200 metric tons. This is, in fact, a huge energy resource.

What to do with spent fuel - which is a byproduct of generating electricity - has been a subject of debate in energy policy circles ever since President Jimmy Carter banned recycling in the mid-1970s. Carter was concerned that rogue governments or terrorists might get their hands on plutonium and use it to fabricate “dirty” nuclear weapons. But France and Great Britain never followed his lead and have continued to recycle spent fuel. Currently just about every country with a nuclear energy program in Europe and Asia is engaged in nuclear recycling. The process is safe and monitored closely by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Now, as a result of President Obama’s decision earlier this year to terminate the Yucca Mountain repository project, the question of whether the UnitedStates should revive recycling is back in the public arena. Since no geologic repository is being built, electricity companies are preparing to continue storing spent fuel at nuclear plant sites indefinitely. Even if the Government were to finally comply with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and take possession of the spent fuel, there still are no regional storage sites or a national facility for the material. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that recycling ought to be considered.

With money that had been set aside in a government trust fund for the Yucca Mountain project now available for other uses, the Administration and Congress are in a position to reconstitute recycling. Such a step would send a message to the rest of the world that the United States once again intends to sit at the head of the nuclear table. Recycling would give the Government and the U.S.

nuclear industry greater influence in the development of nuclear energy.

Financing for recycling is not the intractable issue that it once was. Since 1982, users of nucleargenerated electricity have paid $16.6 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund. Of that amount, $295 million has come from Arkansas ratepayers. With interest, the national total has reached $33.2 billion - and the sum is growing by $200 million a year. About $10 billion has been spent on the Yucca Mountainproject, but that still would leave enough money to build a recycling facility.

To cut costs and avoid a potentially difficult site selection process, the recycling plant ought to be situated on a government nuclear installation. An ideal location would be the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where the processing of military spent fuel is already under way.

Construction of a recycling plant would provide several thousand jobs and revenue for state and local governments in a region that’s friendly toward nuclear energy.

Spent-fuel recycling, however, alone can’t ensure nuclear power’s comeback in the United States. But it can help resolve the waste issue and remove a major stumbling block standing in the way of nuclear plant construction in some states.

Recycling fits the Administration’s philosophy of pursuing a sustainable energy future and expanding the use of emission-free nuclear power as part of a balanced mix of energy sources. But anti-nuclear groups claim - wrongly, I think - that nuclear recycling is dangerous and unaffordable.

Will President Obama and Congress embrace a controversial proposal fully consistent with their energy initiatives at the risk of some heat from the public whose views of nuclear recycling have been distorted by myth and misinformation?

CECIL O. COGBURN IS PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/09/2009

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