| One of the related reasons helping to drive the | | | | his edict indefinitely "deferring" the commercial |
| current uranium bull market higher is the | | | | reprocessing of uranium. Carter wanted to bury the |
| "once-through" use of uranium. The world's largest | | | | nuclear waste. This has led to the present problem of |
| commercial consumers of U3O8 are the U.S. utilities. | | | | where to deposit about 30 years of nuclear waste. |
| Because of government policies established thirty | | | | Instead of recycling the nuclear fuel rods, we are |
| years ago, the U.S. nuclear reactors may not | | | | now faced with decisions about where to bury |
| reprocess its uranium. Each spent control rod contains | | | | nuclear waste. President Reagan lifted the ban in |
| about 95 to 97 percent of unused uranium. Imagine if | | | | 1981, but in the post-TMI years, there was little |
| you were only allowed to use 5 percent of the | | | | interest in reprocessing. President Clinton in 1995 |
| gasoline in your tank to power your automobile. You | | | | proceeded in a joint venture with Russian |
| would be legally bound to drain the remaining 95 | | | | government to dispose of plutonium from surplus |
| percent of the gasoline from your car, store it and | | | | nuclear weapons, called the HEU program. |
| then refresh your tank with new gasoline. Again, you | | | | Ironically, France, Japan and the United Kingdom |
| could only use 5 percent of that gasoline. | | | | reprocess their used nuclear fuel by utilizing the |
| Under these political circumstances, U.S. utilities must | | | | technology developed in the United States. Over the |
| continuously acquire fresh supplies of uranium. A | | | | past forty years, more than 75,000 metric tons of |
| large-scale Generation III nuclear power plant will | | | | used nuclear fuels have been reprocessed. France has |
| reportedly consume 30 million pounds of uranium | | | | reprocessed more than 10,000 metric tons of used |
| oxide over its proposed sixty-year operating life. | | | | reactor fuel. The United Kingdom has reprocessed |
| When the 104 licensed Generation II nuclear reactors | | | | more than 15,000 metric tons. Reprocessing extends |
| are replaced with the next generation of reactors, | | | | the life of the uranium as a nuclear fuel. After five or |
| U.S. utilities can look forward to acquiring more than 3 | | | | six cycles, the remaining plutonium can no longer be |
| billion pounds of uranium to operating those plants. To | | | | used. By recycling the uranium and plutonium within a |
| worsen matters, these same utilities will be | | | | metric ton of used reactor fuel, utilities are getting |
| competing with others across the globe, which also | | | | the equivalent of the energy from 100,000 barrels of |
| want uranium to power their nuclear energy | | | | oil. |
| programs. | | | | Instead, U.S. utilities are given a bizarre alternative to |
| The Generation IV nuclear reactor designs may help | | | | reprocessing. Spent fuel rods are stored in nuclear |
| solve the problem. The problem of reprocessing | | | | fuel storage pools of water. Instead of reprocessing |
| stems from worries about plutonium falling into the | | | | the used nuclear fuel, it must now be safely stored. |
| hands of terrorists. In May 1974, India detonated a | | | | The ongoing national debate about nuclear waste |
| nuclear device. The device was constructed from | | | | disposal, and whether or not to utilize Yucca |
| plutonium separated at its reprocessing facility. The | | | | Mountain, can also find its roots in the political decision |
| Indians had obtained plutonium from an insecure | | | | made during the 1976 U.S. presidential election. |
| Canadian research reactor. | | | | U.S. utilities are currently held hostage from all sides: |
| Then-presidential candidate James Earl Carter was | | | | (a) provide a cleaner source of energy to a growing |
| opposed to recycling plutonium. He debated | | | | appetite for electricity; (b) don't reprocess spent fuel |
| then-President Gerald Ford about the evils of | | | | rods, but instead burden the uranium miners to obtain |
| reprocessing. This election also took place during the | | | | a fresh supply of uranium for their re-fueling cycles; |
| high point of the 1970s uranium bull market. President | | | | (c) dispose of the nuclear waste in new and inventive |
| Ford blinked and issued a 1976 policy statement, "The | | | | ways (dry cask shortage to alleviate the rising |
| avoidance of proliferation must take precedence | | | | storage pools); (d) build newer and safer nuclear |
| over economic interests." He changed the domestic | | | | reactors. Once-through has created numerous |
| policies of the "commercialization of chemical | | | | problems for U.S. utilities, and ultimately for every |
| reprocessing of nuclear fuel which results in the | | | | American. |
| separation of plutonium." By April 1977, Carter issued | | | | |