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Re:U.S. Reenters the Nuclear Fuel Game by Maakuth on Wednesday November 15, 2023 @04:21AM (#38274813)
Those are breeder reactors. In breeders, less fissile materials are transformed into more fissile ones. That's interesting technology and very nice on paper, but there are practical challenges.

Reprocessing is another thing entirely. It relies on the fact that used nuclear fuel is mainly not reusable due to accumulation of neutron poisons. In reprocessing, these poisons are removed so that the rest of the fuel can be reused. This too has many practical challenges as you end up with liquid radioactive materials and a lot of it is waste. So far it has proven more practical than breeders, though. Perhaps that is because the same processes can be used to extract materials for nuclear weapons.

Re:U.S. Reenters the Nuclear Fuel Game by rahen on Wednesday November 15, 2023 @08:53AM (#38276589)
Very informative, thank you. What about the MOX fuel they use, is this the product of that reprocessing technology?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel

Re:U.S. Reenters the Nuclear Fuel Game by Maakuth on Thursday November 16, 2023 @02:12AM (#38286567)
Yes, I believe MOX is one option of what you can make from what's left from reprocessing. I think it's possible to make more conventional fuel there too, but then what are you going to do with the plutonium.