The economics of reprocessing

The reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel was always at the heart of the civilian nuclear enterprise. Separating plutonium and unburned uranium from the fuel matrix was regarded as indispensable. This was because uranium would become scarce, fast breeder reactors (dependent on large amounts of plutonium as a fuel) would come to dominate, and radioactive waste management (RWM) would become easier with the smaller volume of high level waste (HLW) that reprocessing would isolate...