New gen 4 reactors are coming. They have been slow in coming, but still coming. We have funded some to a minor degree, but there is way to fund certain new reactors.
Current reactors in America are thermal reactors. That means they have low-energy neutrons, or thermal neutrons. These will not come close to finishing the nuclear fuel cycle. In fact, we have only used 2-3% of the energy available from uranium. IOW, it does not finish the nuclear fuel cycle. It also means that the mass of the ORIGINAL Uranium remains close to the same only now, it has many other elements including long-lived plutonium (with 24,000 half-life ). But, by using gen 4 FAST reactors, these will finish the fuel cycle. What will remain will be less than 15% of the original mass AND will be 100% safe in less than 300 years (with 99% of that gone in the first 100 years).
We have a fund for dealing with spent fuel. It is over $50B today. Its whole purpose is to deal with the spent fuel. So,
I propose that we use these spent fuel funds to help start new reactors that will finish the fuel cycle. Have the % of the new reactor funded based on what % of the new reactor’s fuel will come from the current ‘waste’. If the plant mixes 25% of its fuel from the current ‘waste’, then the reactor should get up to 12.5% of its funding from the spent fuel fund. If new reactor is to use 100% from spent fuel, then 50% of the funding will come from the fund.
Utilities pay into the fund with $.001/kWh of electricity generated. If the reactor was funded by the above spent fuel fund, then utility will pay in $.01/kWh, or 10x the current rate. For a 500MW reactor, it will mean the utility will pay back $35-40M / year to the fund. For all intents and purposes, the fund will be paid back multiple times even though it will have far less than the 100k tonnes of spent fuel that we have today.