I think so. The spent fuels are put aside to cool down for years. There is an entire industry on reprocessing the spent fuel. The newer reactors can use these reprocessed fuels. That would be a good practice to use the spent fuels in a small modular reactors in the future and it could help decentralise the energy grid. 👀
Do you have any ideas on the topic nostr:npub18fuceddpkztv6rudrl7e87h7xpkc3vnnzkwx4vvrlh8ggnzlld2sd79ms9 ?
It seems like the United States is behind other nuclear countries in reprocessing spent fuel. I can only assume this is due to fear and NIMBYism. We are sitting on the most obvious clean and safe energy source ever discovered and acting like we can’t do more with it.
Yes, the technology exists to chemically and electrolytically separate non fissile materials from spent uranium full rods. France, Russia and Japan have fast breeder reactors that use a mixed oxide fuel that combines UO2, PuO and other transuranics. They can recover another 80ish% of the embedded energy in it all. It also has the added effect reducing more material to a more stable less radioactive state, while also breeding new fissile elements that increase the total amount of recoverable power.
