TOKYO Japan is preparing to start up a massive nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant over the objections of the Obama administration, which fears the move may stoke a broader race for nuclear technologies and even weapons in North Asia and the Middle East.
Rokkasho has been seen as a facility that will allow Tokyo to reduce radioactive wastes from its nuclear power plants by reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.
The United States long opposed the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel because of terrorism and proliferation concerns, but DOE began researching new reprocessing technologies in 2005, and the Obama Administration has remained open to new technologies.
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Creating international nuclear fuel banks and shared management of enrichment, reprocessing and spent fuel storage facilities would make nonproliferation sense as well as supporting civil nuclear power in energy-thirsty Asia.
In a study completed late last year, Oak Ridge officials determined that the U.S. is at least 20 years away from large-scale reprocessing of used nuclear fuel, if it decides to pursue such technologies.
FORBES: U.S. To Bury Almost All Existing Used Nuclear Fuel; Recycling Deferred At Least 20 Years
North Korea has said that it will reactivate all of its nuclear facilities and go ahead with reprocessing spent fuel.
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As a prelude to Tuesday's meeting, they made the chilling announcement that they had finished reprocessing 8, 000 nuclear-fuel rods and were using the plutonium extracted from them to make bombs.
That led the current North Korean president, Kim Jong Il, to order the reprocessing of the nation's spent nuclear fuel rods, to expel the inspectors and to explode two nuclear devices, destabilizing the region, Carter said.
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Maybe some company could offer a reprocessing service that gives the utility a smaller quantity of waste for the repository plus some nuclear fuel to help offset the cost.
The nuclear industry is going belly up due to several very high profile failures -Fukushima, a fuel reprocessing plant explosion in with fatality in France, a pending plant closure due to radioactive leaks in the US, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Denmark all announcing plans to shut down all nuclear activities, and India, and several other countries announcing moratoriums pending safety investigations and reports.
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It has its hands in every part of the nuclear industry, from uranium mining to enrichment to fuel fabrication to reactor design and construction to maintenance and refueling to reprocessing and recycling.
South Korean negotiators had been seeking a new nuclear-cooperation agreement with the U.S. that would allow it to begin enriching uranium and reprocessing spent reactor fuel, arguing these technologies are crucial for Seoul to expand and secure its civilian nuclear-power program.
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