“Generation IV reactors will completely nullify any sincere concern about nuclear waste. What is left over amounts to a few pounds and has a half-life of a few decades.”
Citation, please.
If the technology works, they can reprocess all the stored fuel that is currently in Yucca Mountain and reprocess it to near nothing. That’s what makes Generation IV so vital for the nuclear industry.
Nothing direct, but
A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a type of reactor where the primary coolant or the fuel itself is a molten salt mixture. It operates at high temperature and low pressure.[23] MCSFR does away with the graphite moderator. They achieve criticality using a sufficient volume of salt and fissile material. They can consume much more of the fuel and leave only short-lived waste. .. Another notable feature of the MSR is the possibility of a thermal spectrum nuclear waste-burner. Conventionally only fast spectrum reactors have been considered viable for utilization or reduction of the spent nuclear fuel. Thermal waste-burning was achieved by replacing a fraction of the uranium in the spent nuclear fuel with thorium. The net production rate of transuranic elements (e.g. plutonium and americium) is below the consumption rate, thus reducing the nuclear storage problem, without the nuclear proliferation concerns and other technical issues associated with a fast reactor. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
Fast reactors A fast reactor directly uses fission neutrons without moderation. Fast reactors can be configured to "burn", or fission, all actinides, and given enough time, therefore drastically reduce the actinides fraction in spent nuclear fuel produced by the present world fleet of thermal neutron light water reactors, thus closing the fuel cycle. Alternatively, if configured differently, they can breed more actinide fuel than they consume. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
And from https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel itself:
Nuclear energy is one of the largest sources of emissions-free power in the world. It generates nearly a fifth of America’s electricity and half of its clean energy. During this process, it creates spent or used fuel (sometimes incorrectly referred to as nuclear waste) but it’s not the green oozy liquid you might be thinking of when watching "The Simpsons." In fact, some in the industry actually consider it a valuable resource.
1. Commercial spent nuclear fuel is a solid Spent fuel refers to the nuclear fuel that has been used in a reactor. The fuel used in today’s commercial reactors is made up of small ceramic pellets of low-enriched uranium oxide. The fuel pellets are stacked vertically and encased in a metallic cladding to form a fuel rod. These fuel rods are bundled together into tall fuel assemblies that are then placed into the reactor. The fuel is a solid when it goes into the reactor and a solid when it comes out.
2. The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel each year This number may sound like a lot, but the volume of the spent fuel assemblies is actually quite small considering the amount of energy they produce. The amount is roughly equivalent to less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. And, the clean energy generated from this fuel would be enough to power more than 70 million homes—avoiding more than 400 million metrics tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
If we take that a step further, U.S. commercial reactors have generated about 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel since the 1950s. If all of it were able to be stacked together, it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards. The nation’s spent nuclear fuel is initially stored in steel-lined concrete pools surrounded by water. It’s later removed from the pools and placed into dry storage casks that are made of steel and concrete or other materials used for protective shielding.
5. Spent fuel can be recycled That’s right! Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts. More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor. The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but foreign countries, such as France, do.
There are also some advanced reactor designs in development that could consume or run on spent nuclear fuel in the future. Learn more about our work with spent nuclear fuel.Finally,
Nuclear power is the only large-scale energy-producing technology that takes full responsibility for all its waste and fully costs this into the product.