Today’s so-called nuclear waste is only slightly used nuclear fuel, as only about 3% of its potential has been realized before it is classified as “waste”. Thus, we are burying fuel which still has 97% of its potential for generating electricity that has yet to be realized.

Here’s an energy analogy:

• Imagine your outrage if the United States’ policy was: If you fill up your gas tank, you can only drive your car twenty miles before you must empty the tank and store the remaining gas in a certified container to be buried in the ground forever and pay extra for the privilege.  Sounds like a policy that would not be beneficial to US citizens.  It may even motivate you to protest loudly and fire all the leaders that imposed that on you.  Well, this is the policy we labor under today when we use some of the nuclear reactor fuel’s potential.

For over 70 years, nuclear has been producing the safest, emissions free, most reliable, and least expensive electricity for France, the US Navy, and others around the world, that is available today.

We pay huge government subsidies for wind and solar to generate occasional electricity, depending on favorable weather conditions, and much smaller subsidies for coal, natural gas, and nuclear to generate continuous, uninterruptable, and dispatchable electricity.

For nuclear generated electricity, our government has struggled for almost 45 years to fulfill their responsibility to “dispose” of our “nuclear waste”.  Since only about 3% of the electricity potential is realized from this fuel, let’s call it slightly used nuclear fuel (SUNF).

Today, we are on the crown of a revolutionary innovation in electricity production, held back only by our Federal Government.

It turns out that a technology for producing electricity most efficiently is one called “fast reactor recycling”, or “fast breeder reactors”.  If you want more technical terminology, one design is called “molten salt reactors”.  Surprisingly, this technology has been around since before the current light water reactor technology existed, but political factors moved the dial toward the less efficient technology of light water reactors.  Again, to be fair, light water reactors have worked well, has produced extremely low-cost electricity, and has the best industrial safety record in the United States.  But if we can do better, why not?

Since plenty of uranium was available in the early days for light water reactors, it was thought that we did not have to recycle our nuclear fuel after we used only 3% of the available potential.  This left the sticky issue of “what happens to the SUNF left over”?  The best brains in our government could only come up with: “why not bury it in the ground?” 

Well, burying that slightly used fuel sounded good in the late 1970s, so our President, Jimmy Carter, created an executive declaration that it would be forbidden to recycle our SUNF.  So, it was stated, and so it was ordered. 

The SUNF materials were collected at nuclear sites around the US.  Again, to be fair, the material is compact, solid, and very safely stored, so the solution seemed to be OK until a later generation could venture a better solution.  But no generation has yet done so.

The promise of electricity from nuclear power proceeded and President Reagan rescinded the recycle ban of SUNF in 1982.

“Let’s bury the SUNF” initiated resistance.  The pesky Constitutional issue of states’ rights popped up and no state would “consent to accept” the stuff, even though Federal law ordered them to (well, to be fair, ordered Nevada to take it).  Like anything forced upon anyone, it was met by fierce resistance.  State’s rights won out and Nevada has been successful in denying acceptance of this material to this day, despite the Federal Law being still in force.  So much for big brother’s bully stick.

Today, we have amassed about 90,000 tons (a volume that can fit in a large Walmart store-sized building).  Yet still, no “burial” solution is forthcoming from the Federal Government.

• Storage: there is enough SUNF in storage to power the entire USA for centuries to come and enough depleted uranium in storage to last for several thousand years at today’s electricity production rates for the entire US.
• Production: In addition, there is more SUNF produced per year from the existing nuclear power plants (that only power about 20% of the US) than what would be needed to power the entire US with electricity from fast-reactors with the SUNF produced by light water reactors. Unless we shut down the existing nuclear power plants we will never catch up with fast reactors

Technology exists today (remember, since the late 1940s) to fission, essentially, all the remaining 97% of the fuel.  This means (rounding down) 30 times more electricity can be produced from this SUNF (slightly used, right?).  Better yet, we have privately capitalized companies with technology that is ready to go.  At 10 cents per kWh (nobody gets electricity that cheap anymore), the material sitting on our reactor sites now is worth $100 trillion. 

• Yes, that is three times our national debt.  It is equivalent to $300,000 per person in the United States. 
• It is enough to power the current US demand for 270 years.

Nobody has been hurt or killed in 70 years of normal commercial operation of nuclear reactors around the world in 70 years and nuclear power supplies 10% of our worldwide electricity that is continuous, uninterruptable, dispatchable, and zero-emissions. The land mass for nuclear is miniscule compared to that for wind and solar, that can only generate occasional electricity under favorable weather conditions.

Chernobyl was not an accident in the normal operations of a nuclear reactor since all safety provisions were purposely defeated to allow the accident to happen.  It is misleading to call it an “accident”. 

Today, nuclear waste is the key to Unlimited Electricity, as that “so-called nuclear waste”, the slightly used nuclear fuel (SUNF), still has 97% of its electricity potential yet to be realized.

Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table. 

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