The big question is what to do with SPENT FUEL. Spent fuel has lots of radioactive fission products.
Simple answer ... reprocess the stuff.
For a 1000 lb fuel bundle that was originally 6% enriched fuel, maybe 30 of the 60 lbs of U235 is gone, and some of the U238 was converted to Pu239. Pull out the Plutonium and Uranium, the fuel cladding (Zirconium) for re-use. Pull out the radioactive fission products (about 30 pounds.) Vitrify the fission products (mix with molten glass) then put them in stainless steel canisters and bury them.
(A typical power reactor might have about 180 fuel bundles, and 1/3 of the bundles are swapped out every 1 - 3 years, typical cycle is 18 months. Typically, power plants will discharge the fuel bundles and let them cool off in a spent fuel pool for about 10-15 years before removal from the spent fuel pool. This is when the starting the reprocessing should occur; at this point, decay heat is very small, and the radioactivity levels are somewhat diminished.)
Hint ... make the canisters recoverable. Fission products contain valuable rare-earth elements that, about 700 years later, the material will be fairly non-radioactive ... less than the original Uranium ore was ... and the rare-earth elements might be used in exotic magnets, superconductor technology, etc.
Much of this reprocesses/vitrification process is proven technology - already done by the French ... who get over 70% of their nation's electric power from nuclear power reactors, and some of them are breeder reactors. The French already do reprocessing of nuclear fuel for the Japanese, who also obtain significant amounts of electric power from nuclear power plants.
Mike
(former Navy Nuclear Engineer)
As if I didn't have enough reasons to rue the day that gap-toothed grinning moron came on the national scene.
L
That was a very informative and valuable posting. It is amazing what we could be doing! One note of pessimism, though. Your suggestion about making the canisters recoverable is correct, but we have a society that cannot think beyond next week's meaningless reality show, let alone 700 years.
Interesting, and yet another confirmation that James Earl Carter, Jr. was and still is a damned fool.