U.S. Energy Department awards 4 contracts studying nuclear recycling

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/03/business/NA-FIN-US-Nuclear-Recycling.php

BETHESDA, Maryland: The Department of Energy has awarded four contracts to study the feasibility of using recycled nuclear power plant fuel in a new breed of reactors.

The largest contract, for $5.6 million (€4 million), was awarded Monday to Bethesda-based International Nuclear Recycling Alliance, which is led by French state-owned nuclear power plant supplier AREVA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Areva is building reactors in the United States with Constellation Energy, the parent of Baltimore Gas & Electric and the operator of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant.

EnergySolutions, LLC received a $4.3 million (€3 million) contract; GE-Hitachi Nuclear Americas, LLC, received a $4.8 million (€3.4 million) contract; and General Atomics was awarded a $1.6 million (€1.1 million) contract.

INRA will complete three studies by 2008 detailing the technologies needed, designs for a recycling center and recycling reactor, and business plans for nuclear fuel recycling and reuse. If the DOE decides the technology is feasible, a plant could be operational as early as 2020, said Laurence Pernot, an AREVA spokeswoman.

Prior studies have shown that recycling spent nuclear fuel not only reduces the amount of fuel heading to nuclear waste facilities, but can provide power profitably, Pernot said.

FULL story at link.

[kestrel91316]

1. Call me cynical, but I worry that they are just looking for ways to

incorporate spent nuclear waste into park banches and kids' toys and such, so they don't have to properly dispose of it.

They have been watching the Chinese and learning from them.

[hunter]

2. So we're paying for research the French nuclear power industry might utilize quickly...

...while we're still fussing about nuclear power and building lots of new coal fired plants.

:shrug:

[amandabeech]

3. The French have been looking for a good way to do this for some time,

because they generate something like 70% of their electricity using nuke plants. They have a lot of spent fuel laying around, and want to get the benefit of the fissionable material left in it. If you continue to recycle the active parts, you have less high-level waste to dispose of and avoid the hazards of uranium mining.

[hunter]

4. The French already know where their electricity is going to come from.

Here in the U.S. we're going to be in a panic as natural gas supplies fade and the unacceptable destructiveness of coal power plants is acknowledged.

[jpak]

6. The French import virtually all of their uranium - and will also panic when those supplies fade

n/t

[Nederland]

7. Is there any evidence

...that uranium supply is declining? I thought the declines were more a result of falling market demand, not actual scarcity. Could be wrong though...

[jpak]

9. yes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=29898

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=88794

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=87466

[Nederland]

10. Thanks

As I expected, a close look at those links reveal that the shortage of uranium is due to market forces, not physical supply limitations. As one of your links reports, the world pretty much started to abandon uranium mining 25 years ago, with US annual production falling from 48 million tons a year to less than 2 million tons a year. This did not happen because the mines were tapped out, but because demand and therefore prices were falling like a rock.

[jpak]

11. Like oil. uranium is a non-renewable resource and will run out in a few short decades

and, like US oil production, US uranium production peaked and began to decline decades ago.

US uranium production - at its peak - could not satisfy US reactor demand - and cannot today.

sorry to burst any bubbles here...

[Nederland]

12. Once again

Production didn't decline because the mines were running out of uranium, it declined because demand fell.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/06/AR2005080601204.html

<snip>

"After Three Mile Island in '79, the price of uranium fell to near nothing," recalls Clifford Chiles, whose family has been mining here for decades. "The mines closed. We had our boom, and then we got our bust."

...

In an area where people track the spot price of uranium the way Washingtonians track the president's approval rating, the global boom has sparked considerable interest. This year, county clerks say, thousands of mining claims have been staked -- a procedure that still involves driving four stakes into the ground to mark the corners of the plot. More than a dozen abandoned uranium mines have been reopened, and long-closed mills in Utah and Colorado are once again grinding the miners' rocks into the powder form called "yellowcake" that utilities use.

"There could be hundreds of mines operating around here in a year or two," says Ernie Anderson, a veteran mining industry geologist. Anderson says he first "went underground" to mine uranium in the boom years after World War II. Although his age is "way north of 70," Anderson says, he has recently staked claims in 10 areas he judges to be uranium-rich.

<snip>

[Kolesar]

5. France does have a functioning plant on the Brittany peninsula

The end product does not have *any* customers, yet. I think there is a glut of fuel on the market.

[bananas]

8. This is part of the GNEP scam.

John Deutsch of MIT called GNEP a “goofy idea.” He was co-chairman of the MIT study, "The Future of Nuclear Power".
http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=525

[losthills]

13. This is called enriching uranium.

The foundation of any good nuclear weapons program...