General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Former EPA leader: ‘Irresponsible’ for US to halt nuclear power [View all]FBaggins
(26,740 posts)Of course you lose some of the original aluminum.
Just as importantly, not everything that you put into the recycling stream comes out the back end as fresh Al. You end up with some waste that remains "waste". The false dichotomy of "recycling" vs "reprocessing" is nonsensical.
The goal of the program would be:
1 - reduce the need for new fuel
2 - reduce the volume of waste that needs special handling.
#1 is straightforward enough. The uranium and plutonium that are fissile are removed and made into fresh fuel (using up some of the non-fissile uranium as well). The high-level waste (about 4% of the volume) is also removed and stabilize for long-term storage.
That leaves a high percentage of the volume that is just U238. Technically... that's still "waste" since it isn't being used in some other process.... and technically it's "radioactive waste" since it's waste that is radioactive... so there are some less-than-entirely-honest debaters who will pretend that you haven't helped the problem. "You still have lots of nuclear waste!!!" they will say.
The problem with that spin is that the waste problem is much smaller because U238 isn't dangerous... and it's everywhere already. The real waste problem (the stuff you need to store long-term that presents a health risk)... is dramatically reduced (both by the 95+% reduction in high-level waste, but also by the reductin in newly-mined uranium for fuel producion (that eventually becomes waste).