Earth Equity News

4th Generation Nuclear Reactors Could, In Theory, Ease Waste and Security Problems. By Nao Nakanishi, Reuters, October 23, 2009. "A new nuclear fuel recycling system could cut radioactive waste and remove the possibility of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel being used to make weapons, but it won't come cheap. Nuclear experts say the proposed Advanced Recycling Center (ARC) could help to solve some of the biggest worries as the world looks to build more than 100 nuclear reactors to curb greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring energy supply... The drawbacks of the system by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are that the fast reactors involved are very costly and the reprocessing technology involves handling highly radioactive material yet to be proven on industrial scale. The ARC would include GE Hitachi's fourth generation PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactors and an electrometallurgical separation process that would make a new form of fuel from spent fuel rods without separating plutonium. GE Hitachi says the ARC will cut radioactive waste as it can extract by up to 90% of the energy in uranium, instead of the 2-3% that widely-used light water reactors do. 'It allows you to think about different designs for long-term waste storage and disposal,' said Lisa Price, a senior executive of GE Hitachi unit Nuclear Fuel Cycle... Price said the ARC would have the additional advantage of not extracting plutonium, which can be used for nuclear weapons. Current reprocessing methods, deployed in countries like France, Britain or Japan, extract uranium, plutonium and fission products separately from spent fuel rods. 'Recycling does not need to separate plutonium at all. So it does not ever come out in a form that could be used for ill gain. And that's a major advantage from a non-proliferation point of view,' Price said...

"World Nuclear Association (WNA) data shows about 50 reactors are under construction, with most belonging to the second generation of reactors and a few -- like GE Hitachi's ABWR, Areva's EPR, and Toshiba-Westinghouse's AP-1000 -- to the third. The new fast reactors would belong to a fourth generation. 'A lot of the technology on which sodium fast reactors are based has already been demonstrated in the past,' said Tim Abram, professor of nuclear fuel technology at Manchester University in Britain. 'The big challenge is: can we make it economic? Today, the answer is no, so this remains one of the main goals of the Generation IV initiative.' he said adding a European study in the 1990s showed fast reactors would cost about 20% more than conventional reactors.... Utilities generally do not include nuclear waste disposal costs in their investment decisions as, in most countries, governments take on the burden. Companies are therefore less likely to be persuaded by the cost savings on waste storage."