Future of America's Nuclear Power Plants

[PamW]

5. BALONEY!!!

Once again Kris shows he doesn't understand what was said.

Take the portion he highlighted about the 95% of spent fuel. I said NOTHING about burning 95% of the spent fuel in a breeder.

The composition of spent fuel is about 95% - 96% U-238. I said absolutely NOTHING about burning the U-238. The 96% of spent fuel that is U-238 poses ZERO waste disposal problem because it is EXACTLY the same as the U-238 that we dug out of the ground. Natural Uranium contains 99.3% U-238; and hence we could take 96% of spent fuel and just put it back where we got it; in the ground.

The part about recycling as fuel that I said above applies to the long-lived Plutonium. ( Try working on that reading comprehension; so that you don't confuse the Plutonium which is about 2% of spent fuel with the 96% that is U-238 ).

The 96% of spent fuel that is U-238 is not a problem to dispose of; just separate it out and put it back where you got it. U-238 is no more radioactive out of a reactor than it is out of the ground.

It is the Plutonium that needs to be burned as fuel.

Arjun is giving a calculation as to what it would take to burn all the U-238 as fuel; not the Plutonium.

Yes - it takes 500 years to burn U-238; that means we have 500 years of power in the Uranium that is already mined.
With fast actinide burners; we have 500 years of power without mining any more uranium. Sure puts a LIE to all those that say we will run out of nuclear fuel in 50 years or whatever.

Kris; try better next time at keeping your nuclides straight.

You've confused burning U-238 with burning Plutonium.

PamW