The decay heat of spent nuclear fuel offers the key to overcoming the adverse economics of nuclears' high upfront capital costs.

See: "New Invention Using Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods Could Unlock U.S. Oil Reserves Three Times Larger Than Saudi Arabia's” posted at http://www.busine...-2010-2.

Producing oil shale with this residual heat that posed a problem for Yucca Mountain does not preclude further recycling. BWR fuel can be recovered and burned again as is, without the cost and associated proliferation and safety problems of reprocessing, in a CANDU.

The decay heat of spent nuclear fuel offers the key to overcoming the adverse economics of high upfront capital costs for nuclear.

This heat can produce America's oil shale reserves which are three times larger Than Saudi Arabia's.

Producing oil shale with this residual heat, that poses a problem for repositories like Yucca Mountain, does not preclude its further recycling. BWR fuel can be recovered and burned again as is, without the cost and associated proliferation and safety problems of reprocessing, in a CANDU.

Although this process is interesting, none of the products can be used with existing US reactors. Until sodium and heavy water reactors are built in the US, we are left with the need to transport the materials to ports and ship them to other countries.

Traveling wave reactors like that proposed by TerraPower/Intellectual Ventures, if successful, would probably be the best use of spent fuel.

BWR fuel can be recovered and burned again as is, without the cost and associated proliferation and safety problems of reprocessing, in a CANDU.

Although the U-235 content of spent BWR fuel is higher than that in the natural uranium used in CANDUs it still can't exactly be used as is.

There are still fuel sheath/bundling issues, fission products to deal with, etc. I love CANDUs as a place to use the reprocessed fuel and I agree that the cost of reprocessing BWR fuel to be used in a CANDU reduces cost and proliferation issues, but there is still a significant amount of processing that needs to be done to fuel coming out of a BWR before heading into a CANDU.

Although this process is interesting, none of the products can be used with existing US reactors. Until sodium and heavy water reactors are built in the US, we are left with the need to transport the materials to ports and ship them to other countries.

Currently, nuclear waste is to be stored in a way that it can be retrieved should it need to be transported/studied/whatever (regardless of what may have been done in the past, this is how it is done now).

Because of this it is far more likely that fuel will be stored in the same manner it is now rather than be shipped across oceans and borders. When the technology and techniques described in the article are being used in the US, the spent fuel will be retrieved and reprocessed.

CANDU technology offers another unique option for the back end of the LWR fuel cycle, which completely avoids the need for wet reprocessing and fissile-material recovery. The "DUPIC" fuel cycle, or "direct use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU", utilizes the non-separated, non-enhanced waste product of LWRs directly as CANDU fuel (Keil, 1992).

The transfer from LWR to CANDU can be literally "direct", involving only the cutting of spent LWR fuel rods to CANDU length (~50 cm), resealing (or double-sheathing), and reengineering into cylindrical bundles suitable for CANDU geometry.

http://www.nuclea...fuel.htm

About time someone did something more sensible with all that UNBURNT fuel rather than dumping it.

The transfer from LWR to CANDU can be literally "direct", involving only the cutting of spent LWR fuel rods to CANDU length (~50 cm), resealing (or double-sheathing), and reengineering into cylindrical bundles suitable for CANDU geometry.

I think we're agreeing with each other. When I said the fuel still needs to be processed before it went into a CANDU this is what I was referring to. No chemical reprocessing, but the handling of fresh(ish) fuel and cutting/sheathing/bundling of these fuel rods would still be considered processing of the fuel and are still fairly hazardous and time consuming activities.

I'm not saying I don't support it (because I definitely do think it's one of the easiest ways to reuse BWR fuel), but to say it goes "directly" from BWR to CANDU seems a little misleading.

to say it goes "directly" from BWR to CANDU seems a little misleading.

Point taken.

At the risk of being obvious, GE does process 'fuel' into nuclear waste. On the other hand, I do applaud any serious efforts by GE Hitachi to minimize the problem.