Russia Unveils Detailed Plans To Build 21 New Nuclear Power Units By 2030

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25. So you or your guru are claiming that reprocessing is 100% efficient

It is not and cannot be.

Firstly the only items that can be reprocessed are the fuel rods nothing else. The highly radioactive concrete and steel, moderators and control rods, primary coolant and coolant pipes that makes up the containment cannot be reprocessed; it is and will remain for centuries as high level waste.

Secondly, fuel rods cannot be completely reprocessed only the pellets. The cladding and the associated structures are destroyed and become high level waste. The cladding is not re-used.

Thirdly, the fuel pellets cannot be completely reprocessed, the last I heard reliably (about 20 years ago) was that only 50% of the fissile material can be recovered and processed into new fuel. I was told, by an unreliable source (a site worker) that the new plant can recover 80% of the fissile material. All the remaining material is high level waste.

Now Dr Till claims that

Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.

If he is a reliable source please please tell me why the Yucca Mountain repository is required?