BE WISE - STOP REPROCESSING
About 10% of the spent fuel that is produced worldwide is being reprocessed. In a reprocessing plant, the spent fuel is chemically treated: high-level fission products, uranium and plutonium are separated.
The outdated idea of reprocessing was developed decades ago when the nuclear industry planned to use the separated plutonium in fast breeder reactors. Due to problems with economics, safety and technical issues the breeder story failed to succeed. Examples: the Kalkar breeder in Germany never opened due to political reasons, the French Superphenix closed in 1999 after having produced only an equivalent of 278 days of full power electricity production and the Monju reactor in Japan has been shut down since an accident in 1995.
Despite this failure, reprocessing still continues in Europe and Asia. Plutonium, of which only a few kilograms are enough to produce a nuclear weapon, is now used in so called MOX fuel. The MOX industry in the United Kingdom has been faced with serious allegations of falsification in producing the fuel.
Reprocessing plants release large amounts of radioactivity into the air and water. The Irish Sea near the UK reprocessing plant Sellafield has become known as the most radioactive sea in the world and lakes near the Russian Mayak plant actually contain high level radioactive liquids instead of clean water.
WISE has played an important role in the discussion on reprocessing. In The Netherlands we have urged the government to put a ban on reprocessing nuclear waste from the Borssele nuclear power plant. In our WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor (and formerly in the WISE News Communique) we have often paid attention to the problems of reprocessing and scandals on MOX fuel. For instance, we produced in 1997 The MOX Myth, a special issue on reprocessing and MOX fuel.
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