Re:Deaths per unit of energy for various sources
by patrickyeon on Thursday March 17, 2011 @12:01PM
(#2336583)
CANDU doesn't chemically re-process it (no purification). It just physically breaks it up into fuel rods that it can use. A CANDU reactor can run on unprocessed, raw (just-pulled-it-out-of-the-ground) uranium, which light water reactors cannot do without chemical reprocessing.
The reason the US doesn't is partly nimby-ism and partly strategic, waste contains plutonium and if we need to make more nukes to fight the commies we will be glad we didn't reprocess it all.