Future of nuclear energy hinges on recycling technology.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: INSIDE SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY

* Demands for electricity are rising around the world and a growing number of nations are seeking alternative sources of energy to fuel their needs.

Global warming concerns, volatile oil prices and the security of fossil fuel sources have sparked a renewed interest in nuclear power. Frequently touted as one of the few electricity-generating sources that does not cause air pollution or emit greenhouse gases, nuclear power plants are arguably a clean energy technology. Collectively, they are producing 15 percent of the world's electricity.

But they also have been the source of catastrophic disasters. The 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown and the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion still haunt the technology's progression to this day. But the industry's Achilles' heel is the radioactive waste that is produced in the process of generating power, experts say.

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In the United States, the hazardous spent fuel from the 104 nuclear plants is hauled away to be stored in deep geological repositories, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, for hundreds of thousands of years. Other nations, including France, Great Britain and Russia, recycle the fuel through a procedure called reprocessing, which separates the uranium and plutonium for use in a new fuel.

The removal of uranium from spent fuel eliminates most of the volume of radioactive material that requires disposal in repositories, a Congressional Research Service report states. Removing the plutonium also eliminates most of the long-term radioactivity in the waste.

But there are problems and challenges associated with reprocessing. Not only are the technology solutions costly and inadequate for the volumes of waste, but also there are concerns that the separated plutonium--a key ingredient for nuclear weapons--poses a proliferation threat.

"The most severe threat associated with nuclear power is the proliferation of nuclear weapons," says Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit think tank based in Massachusetts.

That is why the United States in the 1970s decided to dispose of spent nuclear fuel in repositories rather than recycle it. Spent fuel is so radioactive, heavy and inaccessible that it poses little risk of theft by terrorists searching for materials to make a nuclear weapon.

In an effort to spur support for nuclear energy, the Bush administration has pressed forth with an initiative, called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, to...