> The US decision to not get the government pushing reprocessing was the correct one.
Not in context, because the context was that that decision was part of a general policy on the government's part to kill nuclear energy. If the government had wanted to help nuclear energy, it would have said, sure, reprocess if you want to, as long as you're willing to deal with whatever the economics of it turn out to be. (In the 1970's, when the Carter administration made the decision, uranium mining was considerably more expensive than it is now, so reprocessing might well have made economic sense then, even if it doesn't now.)
The context was that nuclear growth was going to slow down, both because electric power demand growth was slowing, and because nuclear power plants were even then experiencing large cost overruns. If the government pivoted away from nuclear, it wasn't some plan to kill nuclear, but rather a reaction to these market facts.
In that environment where nuclear growth did not match the central plans, reprocessing made no sense.
Not in context, because the context was that that decision was part of a general policy on the government's part to kill nuclear energy. If the government had wanted to help nuclear energy, it would have said, sure, reprocess if you want to, as long as you're willing to deal with whatever the economics of it turn out to be. (In the 1970's, when the Carter administration made the decision, uranium mining was considerably more expensive than it is now, so reprocessing might well have made economic sense then, even if it doesn't now.)