Bailey said the United States developed the technology to reprocess nuclear fuel back in the 1940s and 1950s, but it was commercialized by French and Japanese companies after the United States halted any reprocessing efforts to try controlling nuclear proliferation.
The United States halted such reprocessing because it created plutonium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
"The world is doing it without us and we can't stop them, so we need to figure out the best way to do it and move that forward," Mr. Bailey said. "Let's not be a laggard; we need to be a leader."
As a federal corporation, TVA uniquely is positioned to work with the Department of Energy on the project, Mr. Bailey said. The proposed fast reactor at Clinch River could be built and paid for by the DOE to use reprocessed fuel. But TVA might buy the power and operate the facility, he said.
Such proposed plants would generate about 350 megawatts each, or about one third the size of a nuclear reactor at Sequoyah or Watts Bar, officials said.
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
-- Enrichment -- The process of increasing the ratio of uranium-235 atoms to uranium-238 atoms to make a more stable mixture usable as nuclear fuel in atomic reactors
-- Reprocessing -- The process of separating the usable from the unusable constituents of spent nuclear fuel after the fuel pellets have been used in a reactor to generate heat and ultimately electricity.
-- Waste storage -- 57,380 metric tons of radioactive uranium from America's 104 reactors primarily is stockpiled at the plants, either submerged in open pools of water or sealed in steel and concrete casks. DOE has designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent waste repository and was to begin storing wastes there in 1998, but a series of legal challenges and environmental reviews have blocked such storage.
WHAT'S NEXT
-- At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy will conduct a hearing on nuclear fuel reprocessing alternatives for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership at the New Hope Center, 602 Scarboro Road, in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge is one of 13 sites being considered for a GNEP facility, which could include a fuel recycling center, a fast reactor or a research center.
-- At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Princeton Professor Frank von Hippel will speak on why he thinks nuclear reprocessing is too risky during a presentation at the University Center Auditorium at UT in Knoxville.
-- Jan. 20 -- President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn into office. The new administration is expected to begin considering options for nuclear waste storage and reprocessing.
-- Early 2009 -- Congress is expected to decide on a budget request of $302 million for the Department of Energy's Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative for fiscal 2009 and considers research and operating budgets for nuclear fuel options for fiscal 2010.
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