US Gov says can’t recycle - Anti-nuclear says can’t bury it.

Oh what a costly, costly waste of taxpayer money.

What if the government allowed you to burn only 25 percent of every tank of gas? Or if Washington made you pour half of every gallon of milk down the drain?

What if lawmakers forced us to bury 95 percent of our energy resources?

That is exactly what Washington does when it comes to safe, affordable and CO2-free nuclear energy. Indeed, 95 percent of the used fuel from America’s 104 power reactors, which provide about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, could be recycled for future use.

To create power, reactor fuel must contain 3-5 percent burnable uranium. Once the burnable uranium falls below that level, the fuel must be replaced. But this “spent” fuel generally retains about 95 percent of the uranium it started with, and that uranium can be recycled.

Over the past four decades, America’s reactors have produced about 56,000 tons of used fuel. That “waste” contains roughly enough energy to power every U.S. household for 12 years. And it’s just sitting there, piling up at power plant storage facilities. Talk about waste!

The sad thing is, the United States developed the technology to recapture that energy decades ago, then barred its commercial use in 1977. We have practiced a virtual moratorium ever since.

Other countries have not taken such a backward approach to nuclear power. France, whose 59 reactors generate 80 percent of its electricity, has safely recycled nuclear fuel for decades. They turned to nuclear power in the 1970s to limit their dependence on foreign energy. And, from the beginning, they made recycling used fuel central to their program.

Upon its removal from French reactors, used fuel is packed in containers and safely shipped via train and road to a facility in La Hague. There, the energy producing uranium and plutonium are removed and separated from the other waste and made into new fuel that can be used again. The entire process adds about 6 percent in costs for the French.

Anti-nuclear fear mongering has proved baseless. The French have recycled fuel like this for 30 years without incident: no terrorist attack, no bad guys stealing uranium, no contribution toward nuclear weapons proliferaton, and no accidental explosions.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318688,00.html

Instead of spending a few bucks each year, over the past 30 years, to re-cycling spent nuclear fuel here in the US, ....... the Government has spent hundreds of millions to dig a hole back into a mountain in Colorado to bury said spent nuclear fuel.

And what our Government has accomplished to date:

1. A big hole has been dug into the side of a mountain.
2. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent.
3. No spent nuclear fuel has been buried.
4. Containment vessels holding the un-buried spent nuclear fuel are deteriorating.
5. US energy costs have been dramatically increasing causing heavy burden on citizens.

At least the French seem to do something right ..................................

Is anyone else beginning to think this country just might be inching closer to hopeless?

Well I was just wondering why they don't just sell it to the French???

That way we don't have to worry about the disposal, they do.

passerby wrote:Well I was just wondering why they don't just sell it to the French???

That way we don't have to worry about the disposal, they do.

There is still waste to dispose of. The costs and risks associated with transporting it from one continent to another. I would think it wouldn't be very practical. Perhaps we could pay them to take it, but wouldn't it make more sense to recycle it ourselves?