Nuclear waste is reusable. Why aren’t we doing it?

A nuclear fuel rod is used for 3-6 years. After that, it’s taken out of the reactor and then continues to stay radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Talk about inefficiency. But French nuclear fuel company ORANO is one of the very few companies recycling nuclear fuel on a commercial scale – and has led this field for decades. We went there to find out why.

#nuclearrecycling #nuclearwaste #nuclearpower

Credits:
Reporter: Kiyo Dörrer
Video Editor: Frederik Willmann
Camera: Marco Borowski
Supervising Editors: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann
Fact-Check: Jeanette Cwienk
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon

Special thanks for a background interview and expertise to: Gregg Butler, Dalton Nuclear Institute of the University of Manchester

Read more:
Recovering and recycling of nuclear waste, explantation by ORANO:

Five fast facts about nuclear waste, U.S. Department of Energy

Processing of spent nuclear fuel, info page by World Nuclear Association:

Different spent fuel management strategies, International Atomic Energy Agency:

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:04 Nuclear power in France
1:57 Step 1: Fuel removal
3:57 Step 2: Cooling
5:09 How does nuclear energy work?
6:40 Step 3: Separation
7:44 The plutonium problem
9:36 Step 4: Vitrification
11:05 The downsides
13:57 Other ways of recycling
14:34: Conclusion

[DWPlanetA]

Do you know what they do with nuclear waste in your country?

[firstlast-tydi]

50 years ago, the United States had a nuclear fuel recycling facility. It was operated by Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Getty Oil Company. It was located at West Valley, NY. I was one of the contractors that decommissioned the plant and vitrified the waste stored there (600, 000 gallons).

[NiphanosTheLost]

My only note on this is that I wish you'd taken just a moment at the beginning to not equate "nuclear waste" with "spent fuel rods" because there's a significant amount of "nuclear waste" that is simply rubber gloves and steel cages and things like that which are barely radioactive, but still counted in those mass estimates. The rest was very nice and informative, thank you.

[ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt]

As a former nuclear engineer and chemist, and proponent of nuclear as critical component of our transition from fossil fuels, this is a great video.

One thing not mentioned was molten salt reactors (MSRs) that can burn down the existing stockpile of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). In doing so, they also produce two orders of magnitude less radioactive waste. And that waste is toxic for only a few hundred years vs. tens of thousands of years for the existing fleet of lightwater reactors. It's estimated that SNF could power MSRs for nearly 100 years without the need to mine additional virgin material.

MSR designs are also inherently/"walk away" safe, meaning that in the event of loss of power, the reactor shuts itself down with no escape of radioactivity. This is a significant departure from lightwater/pressurized water reactors. Rather than operating at high pressures, but relatively low temperatures, MSRs use a molten salt that's both fuel and coolant, enabling them to operate at much higher temperatures (good for process heat applications across a wide spectrum of manufacturing sectors), at or near atmospheric pressure.

Lastly, nuclear reactors should be used for four primary purposes:
1. Grid stabilization.
2. Desalination.
3. Green hydrogen production.
4. Process heat generation.

Small modular reactors (SMRs), microreactors and the like can be collocated on the sites of decommissioned thermal power plants, such as coal and natural gas. There they can leverage the vast majority of the installed infrastructure, while providing continued employment for the local workforce. They can also be collocated where intensive energy demand is high and/or where the process heat requirement is great. Think aluminum smelters, iron, steel and concrete manufacturing, data centers, etc.

Solar, wind, hydro (including pumped), geothermal and wave/tidal energy should comprise the backbone of all power generation; stabilized by nuclear and augmented by energy storage (lithium ion batteries, flow batteries, heat storage, etc.).

[Robert-erwq]

In Germany people ran Amok against the Nuclear recycling plant in Wackersdorf. Later attempts at recycling spent fuel rods drew massive protests where people chained themselves to railroad tracks to prevent nuclear recycling (Castor transports).
So the fact that it is recyclable is well known in Germany, just not wanted.

[Hippida]

Such a great video. I'd happily watch it if it were 3 times the length.
This kind of content deserves a really deep dive

[moonshot]

Ayo bruv the current paradigm of human consumption is so inefficient

[marcusoutdoors]

An extremely concise summary of the current situation. Having worked in the industry for 20 years I’ve observed first hand both the technical challenges, but also the fundamental disconnect of a society wanting quick wins, wrestling with inter generational decisions. The result in my opinion is that we keep making bad short term decisions with very long term negative consequences, but here’s the rub, because the consequences are so long term, no one is accountable.

[ganaspin]

Kudos to the french guy for all the effort he has put into speaking in english!

Not complaining, his english is great, it's just that there is much resistance in general for the french to speak english

[JAT]

Some 10% of nuclear electricity in France today is generated by recycling materials in the form of MOX fuel, Orano said, and this can rise to 25% and to almost 40% if used MOX fuel is further recycled.

[anto]

I always love how almost all of our power generation is "turn a turbine" with different media

[LFTRnow]

This vid is ALMOST accurate, and it still feels pretty anti-nuclear, particularly when trotting out the nuclear bomb footage. Yes, someone did make plutonium for a bomb using a CANDU reactor but NO - the reactor was not run correctly to produce electricity. It was NOT from the plutonium from spent fuel. Just because it is "plutonium" does not mean you can make bombs. It is the same problem you get trying to make bombs from natural uranium. Remember the vid mentions U235 - that in high enough concentration (typically well over 90%) makes a bomb, but a reactor runs about 4% with fresh fuel. Plutonium from reactor fuel is a wide mix of isotopes. It is NOT bomb material.

The vid also mentioned "fuel is radioactive for 100, 000+ years". What it should say, is "more radioactive than the average background". When you pull out the plutonium, you are left with fission products (correct in the vid) but those decay away quickly. 300 years is enough to drastically lower the emissions. The plutonium can then be used for fuel (particularly when mixed with regular U238) as "MOX fuel".

As for those "experimental" reactors, they are called "breeders", they consume the U238 which a normal reactor can't do. Instead, the U238 is bred to a mixture of plutonium (gasp!) isotopes, or you start with thorium and breed it to U233. Both of those can be used as fuel, which is why it is said that 96% of the "spent fuel" contains energy being thrown away. The development of breeder reactors started in the 60s. Lack of funding and public fear basically halted development until about 10-20 years ago. We should soon see the results of their development.

The biggest problem with nuclear power is too few members of the public understand it. Once you learn about it, your fear drops away.

[Jim_]

Our Rejection of Nuclear Power was a Huge mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity

[juzeus]

*people forget the other R's. reduce, reuse. that hot pod could heat a building.*

[crispycookye]

There are so many common misconceptions with nuclear energy and its byproducts. Thank you for making something so informative. I hope more and more people realize how effective and clean this energy is in the future.

[MrChainsawAardvark]

It helps to think of nuclear fuel not as the gasoline (petrol) in your car, but rather the lubricating oil for your engine.

The oil never stops being oil, but it does accumulate carbon residue, metal shavings, dust, and other detritus, thus becoming less and less effective. (In nuclear materials - the daughter products of the decay chain can absorb neutrons and thus degrade the efficiency of the fuel assembly) At a certain point, you are going to change the oil make sure the vehicle operates efficiently.

Now what to do with this oil? Stashing it in paint cans around the garage only works for so long. Now you could run the stuff through filters and magnets to remove the particulates, then boil it in a hydrogen enriched atmosphere to refine out a new hydrocarbon substance - but that takes a lot of equipment and knowledge of chemistry. Especially if new bottles of oil are cheap and easily available - it makes very little sense to be doing this on a personal scale.

It should be noted that the supply of Uranium was very uncertain in the later 1940s and early 1950s, so there were a number of projects started for reprocessing. However, more reserves of Uranium were found and the processes for refining it became more efficient. As time went on more responsibility for power plants was transferred from government service to private companies who in turn focused on cost-cutting even more.

Unlike Russia, Canada, and the USA - France didn't have a great untapped Uranium source in an unexplored part of the country, so recycling continued to make sense to them. Their independent streak and desire to build nuclear weapons also made research into refinement/recycling lucrative.

[gendalfgray]

Press like if you had intrusive thought of swimming in there 4:11💀

[gregorymalchuk]

Its not bad that we aren't immediately recycling it, becasue it is always available for future recycling. And it's easier to recycle once it has cooled down for a while.

[estebanrodriguez]

Why doesn’t this have more view? This is extremely important knowledge in preventing fear of nuclear power.

[theyruinedyoutubeagain]

German journalist talking to a French scientist in English, love to see it. As an ESL speaker, I'm fully on board with everyone using a lingua franca, it's efficient af.