Why can’t nuclear waste either be neutralized or recycled in some way? I know the US is sitting on a rediculous amount of waste, so why haven’t they devised a way to make it less toxic to the environment and safer to either store or dispose of?
In: Technology
Nuclear waste can’t be recycled because U238, the non-fuel isotope of natural uranium, gets bombarded with neutrons in the reactor and some of it changes to plutonium. Since some of the plutonium is pure enough to make weapons, it’s politically infeasible to reprocess the waste to recover the reusable fuel.
Latest Answers