Guy doesn't know what he is talking about. First, the French only recycle the waste once. After it goes through the second time, they don't recycle it again. They are building their own version of Yucca mountain to deal with it after that.
Second, in 2003 a very detailed analysis of nuclear power options by a group of MIT Scientists found that recycling is more expensive than the once-through process. See http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
I am not opposed to nuclear power, but as usual, we see crap on the WSJ editorial page.
The only reason it's more expensive is because the disposal of nuclear waste is artificially cheap.
If corporations had to pay for the cost of building phenomenally expensive disposal sites such as Yucca Mountain, recycling would suddenly become vastly more economical.
Another issue is the very low price of uranium; reprocessing solutions weren't considered in the past because uranium was so incredibly cheap that it made no sense to attempt to reprocess spent fuel. One of the primary reasons recycling has become an issue again is that the price of uranium has risen enormously in recent years.
According to The Curve of Binding Energy, nuclear power was going to be subsidized by the sale of plutonium to the AEC. At about a megabuck per kilogram of plu, the sale of plu would pay for the cost of constructing and operating a nuclear power plant, and that lead to the AEC's Chairman claiming that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter" because it would be a by-product of the nuclear fuel cycle. At the end of 2005, there were 1700 tons of privately owned plutonium in the US (the US military has about 100 tons of plu: about 2/3 are in actual weapons).
If his claim is true, then it wasn't tree-huggers who killed off the nuclear power industry, nor Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, it was cold economics.
The nuclear power corporations have been paying for Yucca Mountain, actually. They've paid $30 billion so far and got nothing for it.
An argument for reprocessing that might have better success is to argue for energy security: any country that can store enough uranium to last for a decade is pretty safe from fluctuations in uranium costs.
a group of MIT Scientists found that recycling is more expensive than the once-through process
Note that this recommendation is qualified in the paper: "over the next half century". After that time, they imply that uranium may be scarce/expensive enough that we will need an alternate approach.
They also estimate that the plants we build will have lifespans of 40 years and that we will need a new Yucca Mountain-size waste storage facility every 3-4 years.
It's a little troubling that our nuclear solutions to the energy problem won't last out the century, while the sites that we create for them will be polluted for thousands of years.
Second, in 2003 a very detailed analysis of nuclear power options by a group of MIT Scientists found that recycling is more expensive than the once-through process. See http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
I am not opposed to nuclear power, but as usual, we see crap on the WSJ editorial page.