Why reprocess nuclear fuel ?

Reprocessing - the environmental concerns

The reprocessing of spent fuel fuel often causes the greatest concerns about the workings of the nuclear industry because:

Reprocessing is the only way to produce plutonium
Reprocessing is responsible for most of the sea and atmospheric
radioactive pollution through its discharges
Reprocessing creates vast quantities of radioactive wastes - much
lethal for tens of thousands of years
Reprocessing is responsible for the most dangerous nuclear transports
There are increased levels of childhood leukaemia
around reprocessing plants

What is reprocessing ?

Once fuel has been put into a reactor and irradiated it is known as 'spent fuel' and the industry manages it in two very different ways: long-term storage in either a dry store or underwater and disposal, which is the choice for most spent fuel; or reprocessing. Irradiated fuel has to be removed from a reactor's core when only about 3% of its uranium or plutonium fuel has been used. This 3% of used fuel, however, accounts for 97% of spent fuel radioactivity. Reprocessing involves a relatively simple chemical process of dissolving the spent fuel in nitric acid and then separating out the un-used uranium and plutonium from the unusable waste.

Technical details of the Purex Process of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel are explained in this diagram (60k) from Energy and Security published by The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Spent fuel is extremely radioactive and is one of the most hazardous material regularly transported by road, rail and sea in the world. It is transported in special flasks designed to cool the intensely hot spent fuel and prevent radiation leakages. While the industry claims the flasks cannot leak there is widespread concern about their safety. There is also concern about public and environmental safety in transporting these flasks on ordinary trucks, railway wagons or roll-on/roll-off ferries, for example.

Who reprocesses ?

The main nuclear countries which reprocess spent fuel are the UK, France, Japan and Germany. There are a number of other countries which also send some, or most fuel from their nuclear power stations for reprocessing, such as Switzerland and Belgium. In addition to spent fuel from power-producing reactors being reprocessed, spent fuel from research reactors - used for testing materials for nuclear and non-nuclear industries and the production of medical isotopes - has also been reprocessed at Dounreay. This work causes particular concern because the research reactors use weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium fuel and involves reactors from as far away as Australia.

This map from Energy and Security published by The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research gives details of the reprocessing plants throughout the world. (240k)

Why reprocess ?

There are three reasons given for reprocessing:

Reprocessing is the only way of acquiring plutonium for nuclear weapons;
Reprocessing recovers, or recycles, unused plutonium and/or uranium which can then be used again for fresh fuel;
Reprocessing is sensible management of spent fuel making waste storage easier by separating out materials which can be differently, or separately stored/disposed.

Like the nuclear industry in general, the reprocessing industry was started initially to give access to plutonium and other material needed for nuclear weapons. Plutonium from reprocessing was also to be used by a number of countries for a new type of reactor - fast breeder reactors which used plutonium and uranium as fuel and created more plutonium as the fuel was burnt-up. The promise of fast reactors as being our nuclear future proved false. The UK's fast reactor programme was based at Dounreay in Caithness,(pictured right) and there are fast reactor programmes several countries - France and Japan being the two main enthusiasts. Fast reactors, however, proved very expensive and unreliable and there are serious safety concerns - especially about the liquid sodium used to cool the reactors. The UK has pulled out of fast reactor work, the French reactor is closed more than open, and Japan's recently opened prototype reactor is closed after a major accident. While there are small reprocessing plants around the world - any country with any sort of nuclear weapons programme must either have a reprocessing plant, or be able to acquire reprocessed material - there are three commercial reprocessing plants: Cap La Hague in France, Sellafield in north-west England and Dounreay on Scotland's north coast. Russia would like to develop commercial reprocessing but safety concerns about their plants deter customers.

Environmental and safety concerns

There is widespread environmental concern about reprocessing, its transport issues, environmental discharges, and waste production. Instead of reprocessing it is argued that spent fuel, like other nuclear waste, should be stored above ground at, or as near as possible, to the point of production.

The negative side of reprocessing is:

Reprocessing causes the transport by road, rail and sea of spent fuel to a reprocessing plant and the return transport of the resulting high-level waste and plutonium from the plants of the most hazardous shipments of toxic waste there are today.
Commercial reprocessing of spent fuel results in huge discharges of radioactivity into the sea and atmosphere - virtually all of Europe's radioactive pollution comes from reprocessing plants - and its marine pollution has been measured as far away as the west coast of Greenland.
Reprocessing of spent fuel increases the volume of radioactive waste by up to 160 times. The amount of actual radioactivity is not changed - the industrial process of reprocessing just spreads the radioactivity over a vastly greater volume. Most of the waste is low-level, but there is also plutonium-contaminated intermediate-level waste and a small quantity of high-level waste which is so radioactive and hot it must be continually cooled for at least 50 years before anything can be done with it.
There is widespread concern about the health risks of reprocessing, especially clusters of childhood leukaemia around reprocessing plants.
Finally reprocessing is the only way of producing plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.

There have been major expansions of both the La Hague and Sellafield reprocessing plants in recent years - although growing concern about waste and the cost of reprocessing and managing the resulting waste have led some customers, notably in Germany to cancel contracts in favour of long-storage. The Dounreay fast reactor/Mixed Oxide reprocessing plant is working flat-out on its biggest ever programme, reprocessing over 30 tonnes of fuel from the now abandoned PFR on the site. The small MTR highly-enriched uranium plant is presently closed. Having just lost the chance of a huge American-sponsored programme of work its long-term future is in doubt. Although very much small than the other two plants Dounreay is much dirtier in the pollution per tonne of fuel reprocessed it pumps into the sea and atmosphere.

International concerns

Concerns about the transport of spent fuel and high-level wastes, together with the high environmental discharges, have long made reprocessing the target for international concern and opposition - particularly as sea and atmospheric pollution from reprocessing is spread to many countries without any nuclear programmes.

The poorly reproduced map opposite is from a 1985 Icelandic government survey which shows the distribution of caesium-137 from the UK's reprocessing work in northern seas.

Around the North Sea and North Atlantic, for example, there is tremendous opposition to the Sellafield and Dounreay plants about local communities, local authorities and governments, for example. The Greenland, Iceland, Faroe, Norway and Danish Governments and Parliaments have all protested to the UK and at international conventions. The Irish Republic, which is closest to the Sellafield plant, is also a long-term critic because of health concerns.

Opponents are also concerned about the effects of routine and accidental radioactive marine discharges on fish and fish markets as the North Sea and North Atlantic communities, such as Iceland and Shetland, depend on clean seas for their fishing industries.