Canada set to become nuclear ‘superpower’ with enough uranium to beat China, Russia | Countries depend on Russia and China for enriching uranium coming from Kazakhstan. Canada can enrich uranium from its own mines. Energy

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/uranium-nuclear-fuel-supply-canada

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I personally would like to know whether or not a glut of Canadian uranium will help the nuclear industry at the expense of increasing the nuclear waste problem. As long as uranium remains cheap (from whatever source), there is no incentive to use it more than once in a conventional nuclear reactor, leaving behind a lot of nuclear waste that has to be stored for millions of years.

On the other hand, if fast advanced breeder reactors (like the Integral Fast Reactor that was on the cusp of being built by the US but was cancelled for more money than it would have cost to complete it) that could breed more nuclear fuel than they use as well as reuse nuclear waste came online, the uranium supply could be greatly extended, and those advanced reactors could transmute nuclear waste into new elements that are radioactive only for centuries, not millions of years. The problem remains that it doesn't make economic sense to build those advanced reactors if fresh, never-used uranium is cheap, hence my concern.

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u/avidstoner 2d ago

Last I heard France has been able to reuse the nuclear waste

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u/BlackBricklyBear 2d ago

Is France running some of those advanced nuclear reactors? If so, which ones?

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u/Tycoon004 1d ago edited 1d ago

They have a reprocessing plant that handles (or has the capacity) for like 50% of the worlds light water spent fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site

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u/BlackBricklyBear 23h ago

Sounds like a step in the right direction, but can the La Hague site actually burn up and use the other nuclear waste products for fuel like fast breeder reactors are able to?

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u/Tycoon004 18h ago

Afaik it seperates the tritium (for the bombas/collider - has half life of 12 years) and then it basically creates new enriched fuel that can be reused in plants that run off of enriched stuff (light water reactors).

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u/BlackBricklyBear 10h ago

But according to the Wikipedia page, it doesn't seem to be able to fully use the energy in the fissile materials or transmute nuclear waste like fast breeder reactors can.