Reprocessing the remaining spent fuel rods at Yongbyon would give it one more bomb.
One large reprocessing plant can produce about 1, 000 bombs' worth of plutonium each year.
The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been shut down because of severe weather conditions.
BBC: Sellafield shutdown: Severe weather closes nuclear site
The same is true of reprocessing: you can get plutonium out of used fuel.
Then it will simply be a question of whether there is a market for reprocessing.
The building of a reprocessing plant at Rokkashomura, in Aomori prefecture, has been disappointingly slow.
If Tony Blair acts now to stop reprocessing, dozens of countries would welcome this decision.
The remaining 2 percent should be reserved for research into storage and reprocessing technologies, the report advised.
FORBES: U.S. To Bury Almost All Existing Used Nuclear Fuel; Recycling Deferred At Least 20 Years
Would it make sense to embrace some sort of closed-fuel cycle, with limited reprocessing of spent fuel?
CORE, the anti-Sellafield group, says he sympathises with people who might lose their jobs when reprocessing ends.
Reprocessing the recovery of plutonium from spent reactor fuel to make new fuel was conceived when plutonium was valuable.
It follows a minor incident at France's Flamanville nuclear reprocessing plant, less than 30 miles (50km) away.
Chemical reprocessing at Hanford would generate 22, 000 tonnes of high-level waste and 500, 000 tonnes of low-level waste.
However, there are two more things that you need: you need an enrichment plant and a reprocessing plant.
Yet Copeland may well have to face the end of reprocessing, and heavy job losses, sooner or later.
After all, their decision against reprocessing is causing a lot of trouble at home as well as abroad.
Although reprocessing offers some benefits over long-term storage, few anti-nuclear activists embrace it.
FORBES: U.S. To Bury Almost All Existing Used Nuclear Fuel; Recycling Deferred At Least 20 Years
The government must choose between giving Sellafield a breathing space and bringing forward the closure of the reprocessing plant.
Safety would remain the company's number one priority at the nuclear reprocessing site during any industrial action, he added.
Plutonium production no longer is occurring and the reprocessing is no longer occurring.
Councils in the west of the county have expressed an interest in taking waste from the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
BBC: Lake District National Park may host nuclear waste site
North Korea has said that it will reactivate all of its nuclear facilities and go ahead with reprocessing spent fuel.
CNN: U.S. issues warning to North Korea for expelling inspectors
Councils in west Cumbria have expressed an interest in hosting an underground repository for waste from the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
BBC: Lake District National Park fears over nuclear waste store
The Obama Administration has dismissed spent-fuel reprocessing systems already used in France and Japan because of security and environmental risks.
FORBES: U.S. nuclear fuel rods to sit in pools -- like those that failed in Japan -- until 2050
At most they are prepared to consider offering the companies a few years of substitute work for their lost reprocessing.
While the report focuses more on finding long-term storage for radioactive waste, it also considered the reprocessing of such fuel.
There would also be legal hurdles to overcome as reprocessing nuclear waste is one of the most regulated industries in America.
If some amount of something that is radioactive gets into the reprocessing furnace then that essentially destroys that furnace for future use.
FORBES: Does The DoD Want To Kill Us All With Radioactive Nuclear Scrap Metal? No, No Not Really
Even worse, reprocessing produces copious quantities of concentrated nuclear-weapon-usable materials, primarily plutonium.
This week they said that Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities, in return for European concessions over trade.
应用推荐