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by p_l 2337 days ago
Fast reactors can burn waste pretty well, as few other designs. However, it's politically problematic because it involves using plutonium burning (not as fuel, but produced in the reactor while burning down uranium).

This is not liked by certain governments, even if theoretically NPT gives a framework to do it safely, and large scale commercial reprocessing essentially died after India used Canada-built CANDU reactors to kickstart their nuclear weapons program.

1 comments

Global-politically, there shouldn't be any problem for the US, UK, France, Russia, and China to have fast-breeder reactors, but it still may be a concern in local politics due to environmental or terrorism concerns.

Nuclear waste has to be shipped to the facility. All the shipping routes from all the nearest waste-producing reactors converge there. That's naturally a concern to all those who live nearby.