>>How does the waste from the older plants get to the newer plants?
I just did a quick web search. I didn't come up with much, but
http://www.anl.gov/OPA/frontiers96/alchemy.html has these paragraphs:
EBR-II was converted again, beginning in 1982. The next generation
reactor, the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), was a major
initiative in advanced reactor concepts. The IFR was designed
to reprocess its own fuel and to burn up its own long-lived atomic
wastes. The design allowed creation of energy from waste -- not
only its own waste, but also that produced in commercial
reactors, as well as plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.
The passive safety characteristics of metal fueled liquid metal
reactors (LMRs) were clearly demonstrated and confirmed in 1986
with the conclusion of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II
landmark testing program. Other technical accomplishments included:
development of metal fuels for LMRs capable of very high
burnup -- up to 20 percent; development of electro-metallurgical
technology for possible applications to spent nuclear fuels,
weapons plutonium, and LMR fuels; and performance of a series of
safety-related transient reactor experiments which established
the failure mechanisms, failure limits, and post-failure behavior
of oxide and metal LMR fuels.
Work on this next generation of fast reactors -- clean,
resource-efficient, waste-reducing reactors -- was halted by
Congress in September 1994 . . . .
==>paul
