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Reply #7: in the USA at least
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DrGregory
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Thu Aug-26-10 12:47 PM
Response to Reply #3 |
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That's true in the USA only.
Other nations reprocess / recycle spent nuclear fuel. If you do that, you can recycle the long lived radionuclides back to the reactor as fuel.
The only thing you really have to store is the fission products, but they are short-lived. Cesium-137 is the longest lived fission product and it decays to non-radioactive Barium-137. The lifetime is only 30 years.
The multi-thousand year storage problem is unique to the USA, because Congress outlawed spent fuel recycle back in 1978.
The technology was invented in the USA; and our own Congress outlawed it at the behest of the anti-nukes.
Dr. Greg
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