Nuclear energy without reprocessing: A future made possible by energy conservation

Harold Feiveson

Energy, 1987, vol. 12, issue 10, 993-1001

Abstract: The achievements of energy conservation and the promise of future progress have rendered economically unattractive for many decades the separation of plutonium from spent reactor fuel (reprocessing) and its recycle into breeder or light water reactors. Despite this, reprocessing and recycle are already underway in Europe and Japan. If unchecked, these activities, by the end of the century, will lead to an annual flow in routine commerce of tens of thousands of kilograms of separated plutonium, a circumstance which would pose a grave threat to international security. However, continued stagnation of nuclear power programs in much of the world, due significantly to greatly reduced growth rates in electricity demand, will underscore the economic folly of reprocessing and recycle and may eventually encourage their abandonment.

Date: 1987
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0360544287900545
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:12:y:1987:i:10:p:993-1001

DOI: 10.1016/0360-5442(87)90054-5

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().