Nuclear Recycling Fails the Test

In Europe uranium reprocessing has created higher risks and has spread radioactive wastes across international borders. Radiation doses to people living near the Sellefield reprocessing facility in England were found to be 10 times higher than for the general population. Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have sought to close the French and English plants because of their radiological impacts. Discharges of Iodine 129, for example, a very long-lived carcinogen, have contaminated the shores of Denmark and Norway at levels 1000 times higher than nuclear weapons fallout. Health studies indicate that significant excess childhood cancers have occurred near French and English reprocessing plants Experts have not ruled out radiation as a possible cause, despite intense pressure from the nuclear industry to do so.
Nuclear recycling in the U.S. has created in one of the largest environmental legacies in the world. Between the 1940’s and the late 1980’s, the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessors reprocessed tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel in order to reuse uranium and make plutonium for nuclear weapons.

By the end the Cold War about 100 million gallons of high-level radioactive wastes were left in aging tanks that are larger than most state capitol domes. More than a third of some 200 tanks have leaked and threaten water supplies such as the Columbia River. The nation’s experience with this mess should serve as a cautionary warning. According to DOE, treatment and disposal will cost more than $100 billion; and after 26 years of trying, the Energy Department has processed less than one percent of the radioactivity in these wastes for disposal. By comparison, the amount of wastes from spent power reactor fuel recycling in the U.S. would dwarf that of the nuclear weapons program – generating about 25 times more radioactivity.

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