Nuclear energy policy continues to advance. There is an initiative to make the nuclear fuel cycle more efficient, cleaner, and generate less waste. The nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S. generally involves uranium mining, nuclear fuel fabrication, nuclear reactor operation, spent fuel removal and storage, and spent fuel and nuclear waste disposal. Other countries, such as France and Japan, reuse their spent fuel because it contains large quantities of enriched uranium and plutonium. These two elements are used in the nuclear reaction. The potential energy savings is huge, since each pellet of recovered enriched uranium, about the size of an eraser on a fat pencil, can generate as much energy as three cords of wood or three barrels of fuel oil in equivalent energy. Currently, spent nuclear fuel is targeted for deep geological repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. But, research has shown that over 99% of the fuel can be recycled and reused.
An Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) has been under development for a several years. To support this initiative, most of the national laboratories and numerous countries are developing and demonstrating new advanced technologies. Countries such as the U.S., Russia, Japan, France, Korea, and others are spearheading the effort and providing research and development resources. These technologies involve advanced chemical separation and recovery processes, fabrication and lead assembly testing of new types of advanced nuclear fuel, and design and testing of a new generation nuclear reactor to use such fuel. Plutonium and uranium, and other transuranic elements, would be efficiently removed using the so-called UREX process and recovered.