Re-cy-CLING?

I crossed into dangerous territory today, doing something I'd hoped to avoid for the rest of my God-given life: I fixed a prominent part of my car with duct tape.

It seems that the government is about to explore ideas that it, too, had hoped to avoid, at least through the foreseeable future: namely, the recycling of nuclear wastes. Through recent history, we, the public at large, have been encouraged to "go green," recycling every common item imaginable; they've offered incentives and even preached fear in order to convince as many people as possible to recycle as much as possible. When it comes to nuclear waste, on the other hand, recycling has simply not been an option, and has seldom been discussed at the political level. That seems to be changing, however, as the Feds, together with the TVA, are now legitimately investigating the potential of spent nuclear fuel recycling.

One of the most prominent reasons given for banning the recycling of spent fuel, aside from the potentially great cost involved, is the concern over terrorism, dating back to the Ford administration.

"Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists, for example, says that the new type of recycled fuel would contain as much as 90 percent plutonium, making it a much more attractive target to a bomb-building terrorist. Spent fuel from traditional reactors, by comparison, contains only 1 percent plutonium."

Compared to the uranium already used? If it were possible to obtain quantities of plutonium from recycling facilities, does it not serve to say that the same concerns are plausible regarding the possibilities of obtaining the enriched uranium in the first place? To me, this seems like a dodge.

If we are to be convinced to recycle a lowly aluminum can or consumed Grolsch bottle, how much more does the recycling of spent nuclear fuel benefit us all ecologically? If we, as a nation, are looking toward nuclear power as a prominent source of energy in the coming decades in order to reduce emissions while increasing output and efficiency, then the effective and efficient recycling of the byproducts of that process becomes a must, especially considering the volatility of those byproducts. Research must be allowed to flourish in order to fully develop and refine the possibilities, and help to dispel the demonic shadow cast, in the eyes of many, by the nuclear industries.