<https://www.powermag.com/u-s-spent-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing-may-be-
making-a-comeback-heres-why/>

Power Magazine seems to be the sole remaining trade rag of the power
industry now that Electrical World is gone, and might be of some interest
to some here - good source of news on both nuke and renewable.

Glen

On Fri, 06 Jan 2023 19:05:38 GMT, Glen Walpert <nospam@null.void>
wrote:

><https://www.powermag.com/u-s-spent-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing-may-be-
>making-a-comeback-heres-why/>
>
>Power Magazine seems to be the sole remaining trade rag of the power
>industry now that Electrical World is gone, and might be of some interest
>to some here - good source of news on both nuke and renewable.
>
>Glen

We did some work on a laser-based isotope separation project somewhere
in the northwest, Hanford maybe; I can't remember the project name.
The idea was that a laser can ionize specific isotopes and then
electrostatically separate them, or something. The project didn't get
past pilot stage.

Oh yeah, it was AVLIS.

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

On Fri, 06 Jan 2023 13:32:00 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

> On Fri, 06 Jan 2023 19:05:38 GMT, Glen Walpert <nospam@null.void> wrote:
>
>><https://www.powermag.com/u-s-spent-nuclear-fuel-reprocessing-may-be-
>>making-a-comeback-heres-why/>
>>
>>Power Magazine seems to be the sole remaining trade rag of the power
>>industry now that Electrical World is gone, and might be of some
>>interest to some here - good source of news on both nuke and renewable.
>>
>>Glen
>
> We did some work on a laser-based isotope separation project somewhere
> in the northwest, Hanford maybe; I can't remember the project name. The
> idea was that a laser can ionize specific isotopes and then
> electrostatically separate them, or something. The project didn't get
> past pilot stage.
>
> Oh yeah, it was AVLIS.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_vapor_laser_isotope_separation

Interesting. There was an attempt to commercialize per your link:

"In the largest technology transfer in U.S. government history, in 1994
the AVLIS process was transferred to the United States Enrichment
Corporation (now Centrus) for commercialization. However, on 9 June 1999
after a $100 million investment, USEC cancelled its AVLIS program."

Looks like they stuck with centrifuges:

"In October 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a report to
Congress which evaluated options to resume U.S.-technology enrichment
operations to meet U.S. national security mission needs. The report
concluded that Centrus’ AC100 centrifuge technology was “the most
technically advanced and lowest-risk option.”[15]"

Whatever the method, getting the transuranic isotopes out of the waste
stream and using them as fuel is the only way of reducing the long term
hazard of used fuel disposal, which is essential for public acceptance of
increased reliance on fission power. Public acceptance is tough; they
would generally rather continue with coal, responsible for an estimated
200k to 400k excess deaths per year from lung disease alone (estimates
vary widely), plus huge amounts of pollution of air and water, than risk
converting to nuclear, responsible for some hundreds of deaths total.
Mostly because of Three Mile Island, an accident which killed no one.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll>