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In Europe and Asia, spent nuclear fuel is routinely recycled so it can be used again — which cuts down on how much high-level waste must eventually be stored. In the U.S., spent fuel is discarded with more than 90 percent of its usable material still intact, filling up “beachfront nuclear waste dumps” like the one at San Onofre .

A federal bill that would pump a half-billion dollars into America’s long-stalled effort to find a permanent home for such waste would nudge reprocessing of spent fuel back on the table and prod officials toward big-picture solutions. The Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Research and Development Act, by Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, would create, among many other things, “an advanced fuel cycle research, development, demonstration, and commercial application program” at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The program would be charged with investigating improvements to the fuel cycle, advanced reactor concepts “while minimizing environmental and public health and safety impacts,” and much-needed storage options, from dry casks to deep geological boreholes. Boreholes have long been considered the single best method to isolate nuclear waste for the long haul, but efforts have been plagued by opposition from communities unwilling to be home to the nation’s nuclear waste.

A related bill, introduced by Reps. Conor Lamb, D-Pennsylvania, and Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, would primarily boost research and development of next-generation nuclear reactors at the DOE to help tackle climate change — a concept not likely to go over well in California, which has a ban on new nuclear development until there’s a permanent repository for the waste. But the Lamb-Newhouse bill also would authorize a used fuel research and development program that could also include reprocessing.

Levin’s program would not be funded from the $43.5 billion Nuclear Waste Fund, which came from utility customers who used electricity generated by nuclear plants, but instead would come from the DOE’s budget, Levin’s office said. It would total more than $507 million over five years.

“The spent nuclear fuel at San Onofre and other decommissioned plants across the country poses serious risks to our health and safety, and we must strive to find new solutions to store and dispose of the waste responsibly,” Levin said in a prepared statement. “This bill would bring us one step closer to getting the waste at San Onofre off of our beach, and that remains one of my top priorities.”

The bill is part of a legislative package heading to the House floor later this week.

Recycling waste

Reprocessing, however, has had a fraught history in the United States. The technology to chemically separate and recover fissionable plutonium from used nuclear fuel was developed after World War II and was an integral part of the nuclear plan in America, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

But reprocessing fuel produces material that can easily be used in nuclear bombs, while regular spent fuel does not. After India started showing off its nuclear muscle in the 1970s, America got spooked. President Gerald Ford suspended commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium in 1976, concerned that it could fall into the wrong hands. A year later, President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order that etched the policy into stone.

President Ronald Reagan reversed Carter’s order, but the work never really ramped back up. Congress soon passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act — committing the federal government to accept and store spent commercial nuclear fuel in exchange for payments from the nuclear plant operators — so there wasn’t much more impetus for reprocessing.

Levin’s bill instructs the DOE to “ensure all activities and designs incorporate state-of-the-art safeguards, technologies and techniques to reduce risk of proliferation.”

While common around the world, reprocessing has strong critics. The Union of Concerned Scientists calls it dangerous, dirty, and expensive.

“While some supporters of a U.S. reprocessing program believe it would help solve the nuclear waste problem, reprocessing would not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Worse, reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapons programs,” the watchdog group says in its primer on the topic.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future rejected calls for reprocessing in 2012, saying “all spent fuel reprocessing or recycle options generate waste streams that require a permanent disposal solution.”

“Nuclear waste reprocessing does not benefit the environment — it only benefits the nuclear industry, and then not by much,” said Bart Ziegler, president of the Samuel Lawrence Foundation. “It’s a very financially costly process and lends to more waste effluent.”

David Victor, a UC San Diego professor and chair of a volunteer committee advising on San Onofre’s tear-down, said he sees the bill trying to create a big tent of supporters. Reprocessing wouldn’t make much sense in the U.S. unless there was a huge new demand for nuclear fuel, he said by email.

Having options and alternatives for off-site storage or disposal of spent fuel will be beneficial to removing it from San Onofre, said Southern California Edison by email. “We appreciate Rep. Mike Levin’s effort to provide those through his legislation.”