Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Committee:

It is an honor to be called before you to discuss the subject of nuclear fuel reprocessing – a matter of considerable importance to the future of nuclear energy, as well as to the effort to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons.¹

Closing the nuclear fuel cycle – that is, reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and recycling the recovered plutonium – has been a dream of many in the nuclear industry from its earliest days. Here in the U.S. that dream has long been elusive, but lately it has been rekindled as attention focuses once more on the future role of the nuclear industry in meeting our nation’s energy needs. I believe that a major expansion of nuclear power will almost certainly be necessary if our industries, offices, and homes are to be assured of access to adequate supplies of energy at reasonable cost and with proper regard for the environment, especially given the crucial need to curtail carbon dioxide emissions. However, in my judgment an attempt to introduce spent fuel reprocessing here in the U.S. in the near term would not only not help to ensure a greater role for nuclear power but would actually make this outcome less likely.

Spent nuclear fuel from commercial light water reactors typically contains about 1% of plutonium. Recovering this plutonium and recycling it in so-called MOX or mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel would reduce the requirement for natural uranium ore by about 17% and the requirement for uranium enrichment services by a similar amount. But the operations needed to accomplish this – reprocessing and the fabrication of mixed-oxide fuel – are costly, and adopting them would cause an increase in the overall cost of nuclear electricity relative to the open or once-through fuel cycle with direct disposal of spent fuel. There is no disagreement about this, although opinions differ as to how large the cost penalty would be. But given that unfavorable economics has been one of the main barriers to nuclear energy investment for decades, and that it remains a major issue today, any proposed course of action that would result in an increase in nuclear generating costs should be viewed with caution.