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DOE turns to private sector to build out spent nuclear fuel recycling
The Department of Energy on April 22 issued two requests for applications seeking proposals from private industry on kickstarting the reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel in the United States.
According to the DOE, the RFAs represent an unprecedented opportunity for the private sector to restore the nation’s nuclear leadership.
G J Butterworth
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1994-2000
Safety, Recycling, and Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A30014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For a large-scale fusion energy system the ability to recycle materials removed from reactor service could confer several benefits. Firstly, it could extend the resources of strategic chemical elements, thus enhancing the potential of fusion as a sustainable long term energy source and, secondly, it could reduce the quantities of radioactive waste requiring permanent disposal. A number of preliminary studies have been performed to assess the recycling potential of some candidate reactor materials and particular examples of tritium breeders, low activation steels, vanadium alloys, tungsten and copper are briefly described. In most cases, technically-feasible processing routes can be identified for the recovery and reuse of material in the fusion cycle without the generation of large-volume waste streams.