As this is being written, the Japanese freighter Akatsuki Maru is leaving Cherbourg, France with a load of what the GAB (Great American Brainwash) calls "1.7 tons of plutonium," reprocessed from used fuel rods. In a moment I will explain in greater detail than before why this reactor-grade fuel cannot be used for bombs, and why plutonium is not extraordinarily toxic.
But in the meantime, let us ignore the question of proliferation and toxicity, and take a look at the flabbergasting irrationality of Greenpeace and their allies (such as virtually all of the US mass media). For this we need very little technical knowledge: after 2 to 3 years in a light-water reactor, the fuel rods of a reactor become "poisoned" by fission products (including plutonium, about 0.5% of the total spent fuel) and have to be replaced. However, the "spent" fuel still contains almost all the energy that it had when it was fresh. By reprocessing the spent fuel into "mixed-oxide" fuel (uranium oxide plus a small fraction of plutonium oxide) one can retrieve about 50% net of this energy.
1) The non-technical aspects are much harder to fathom. For example, some 100 protesters, mostly Greenpests, had gathered before dawn on the day of loading to block the trucks carrying the reprocessed fuel to the ship. They were dispersed by French police, but why did they try to block the freight? Other than lunacy of cosmic proportions I have no explanation, for these raving madmen were in effect screaming "Do not let this A-bomb material leave our country! Keep this most toxic substance known to man right here in France! Do not let any other country lay hands on it! No plutonium for anybody but the French!"
2) Then there is the puzzle of the environment. Per energy delivered, nuclear power is environmentally more benign in its entire cycle, from mining through waste disposal than any other source of electricity
3) Reprocessing is a form of recycling. I am against recycling paper because it is wasteful and utterly unnecessary. But I am not opposed to all recycling which has been used, for example, in the (scrap) iron industry since the late 18th century. All I ask is that the decision whether to recycle be made by a free market and not by a bunch of bureaucrats. Not so the anti-environmentalists like the Greenpests and the Earth Fiends. They would recycle anything and everything, with one exception: nuclear fuel. "Stop the recycling!" is what the protests and obstructions by the Green lunatics were in effect saying.
4) Energy conservation? When you reprocess a spent fuel rod, you don't conserve the piddling amounts of energy that Amory Lovins is blabbering about
¾industrial electric motors whose efficiency is already in the 90s, shavers that will save you all of 0.003 kWh per shave, and similar twaddle. When you reprocess nuclear fuel you get half as much again of delivered electricity. A nuclear plant usually replaces 1/3 of its core per year. With reprocessing the present delivery of electric energy would increase not by Lovins piddle-watts, but by a cool 116 billion kilowatt-hours per year. What do the Greenpests say to that? In effect, "No more energy conservation! Let's waste kilowatt-hours by the hundreds of billions!"5) And lastly there is conservation of resources, which, these lunatics tell us, are running out on the planet. If you simply use up the uranium now available at a reasonable price, it may indeed last only some 40 years (say the estimates, for what they are worth). But if you breed (not reprocess) it into plutonium, there is enough electricity for the next several hundred million years. The Greenpests' actions on the point speak loud and clear: "The hell with future generations! Let's loot the planet for ourselves right now!"
Looking over this galactic inconsistency and irrationality, what can I say? Only that I take my hat off to the two audacious French intelligence agents who, in New Zealand some years ago, blew the Greenpests' ship Rainbow Warrior to Kingdom come. They were caught, sentenced to long prison terms, and about a year ago freed after negotiations with France. Throughout their imprisonment they held their head high (one of them was a woman) as well they might, for they did all mankind a service.
The Japanese reprocessing plant is not quite ready yet, following Nixon's You must, Carter's You must not, and Reagan's You, may if you wish. In the US, reprocessing was banned by Carter in 1976, and in 1981 Reagan lifted the ban, but although the reprocessing plant in Barnwell, S.C., was well on the way to being completed, the nuclear industry declined to reprocess, citing "regulatory uncertainties" (read: the government has killed our investments before and will kill them again). It therefore seems improbable that Hillary Clinton will reintroduce the formal ban.
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Vol. 20, No. 4
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 20 Issue/No.: Vol. 20, No. 4 Date: December 01, 1992 10:56 AM Title: Four more years of much more
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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