Reprocessing Nuclear Fuels
I noticed the reprocessing of nuclear fuels at a Savannah River site in South Carolina
just mentioned in passing in a 2010 article.
http://www.thestate.com/2010/10/25/1...ov-debate.html
Let the buyer beware.
http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/srs-snf.html
"...
Reprocessing is probably the dirtiest operation in the nuclear fuel cycle. [[If there's a dirtier step, it's the initial mining and milling of uranium which has scarred the landscape of affected areas with millions of tons of dangerous dirt called tailings and large amounts of low-grade ore.) In South Carolina alone, reprocessing is responsible for creating the most radioactive waste in the country -- over 30 million gallons of high-level liquid waste containing chemicals used in the separation process combined with a long list of radioactive elements created inside the reactors. Reprocessing has also generated tens of thousands of containers of solid radioactive waste which is buried just a few miles from the Savannah River. Already some of that waste has moved into soils and groundwater at SRS, while some liquid low-level radioactive waste from reprocessing began seeping into creeks at SRS years ago.
It will cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars to contain the waste from past reprocessing. There are no plans to ever completely clean it up. No one yet knows how to do so safely, even if there was money to try.."
