Nuclear waste is reusable. Why are we not re-using it?

I thought the chick said that the cost of reprocessing it was way higher than just refining the raw ore, and making up fresh rods from that.

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: it is and it is not... the raw 'leftover' material is able to continue to be used in its current state, just not going to be as quick or efficient to extract power/heat from the rods...

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: the problem that the companies have (not much of one though) is that actual recycling would cut into their profits from storing and burrying the 'spent' rods...

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: it is possible to break down the material and reuse the metals but because of the effects of the nuclear material on the metals they would not be viable for any general use because the metals will break down at an accelerated rate (from what i know), it would be better to use the head being slowly expelled to be used in a smaller reactor... the smaller reactors are less expensive, will produce a little less power over a longer and longer period of time.

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: as the rods lose power the process of fission becomes much slower at degrees of magnitude so that eventually it would take years to get a small franction of energy out of it at 50 percent capacity or less... overall while smaller reactors are less efficient as large full size reactors in extracting a large amount of energy, they are far more efficient at extracting power over longer periods of time... so if there are enough of the smaller reactors they can produce a high amount of energy over a longer period of time.... one the rods would reach a 30 - 40 percent capacity rate the output would be almost imperceptible and at that point any further use would be negligible at best...

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: the last bit is complete hypothetical from a nuclear physicist who had written a book on efficacies of nuclear power.... the thing to note is as the rods power is spent the reaction of fission becomes slower and slower to the point where it no longer becomes feasible to try to extract any more power and you would have to turn it into slag for it to release the rest of the energy and that would still be pretty catastrophic, unless a way was found to contain the meltdown process and extract that remaining energy in the process (currently an impossibility)

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: it would become a very involved and expensive process before there could be any returns and it could take hundreds of years to extract even up to 50% of the energy, also you have to consider space needed and automation in order to keep humanity and contamination as low as possible...

@sbseed: Without being any kind of super expert on it, I would have thought that grinding up the spent fuel rods, and after some cleaning out the non metallics, that melting in long narrow centrifugal furnace crucibals, that they could separate the U235, U238 and Plutonium, simply and in bulk, on the basis of how the layers stacked, on the basis of density - not absolutely dead accurate, but slicing off the bottom = 90% plutonium... then 80% U238, then 90% U235.... Like separating out motor oil, diesel and petrol, by centrifuge... they also stack in layers...

@Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson: 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.

They operate on unenriched uranium. The downside is creating all the heavy water for the reactor.

Whatever you don't split her atoms with your Nuclear Fuel Rod and Don't Deposit your Nuclear Waste inside her HAHA get a Sex Doll instead they don't talk and Love to be poked with DICKING METERS haha :D \G/