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Old 11-24-2016, 02:49 PM   #158 (permalink)
Hersbird
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The US Navy is sort of a small player in the big picture but they don't even come close to using up their fuel rods. You could take "spent" rods from the Navy and immediately use them in shore based reactors for more power. The Navy has different requirements about being able to quickly recover from a shutdown.
All of civilian plants use only 4% of the overall uranium in the fuel, and of that 1% is actually converted to fissionable Plutonium. They do use the majority of fissionable U-235 but recycling makes much less waste disposal necessary, and much less new mining necessary. Pretty much the same as recycling anything else out there. Also like anything else the more it is done, the better the process will become.
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Overview - World Nuclear Association
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