The Spent Nuclear Fuel Scandal

It has been proven that nuclear fuel rods can be used up and rendered pretty much inert.
I suppose it depends on how much you know about nuclear energy. In the first place, had we gone with the thorium process, none of this would be a problem. Look it up. Thorium nuclear power generation is better in every measure, but one thing prevents development: It would remove control from the vested interests run by psychopaths in uranium production.
But even uranium and plutonium nuclear power generation need not produce the so-called nuclear waste which threatens every life on this planet. The main problem with Fukushima is not the reactors, but the stored nuclear waste sitting in the pools above the reactors. The meltdown is an additional problem. Had the US under Carter not been so utterly stupid in making fuel reprocessing illegal here and elsewhere, there would be no nuclear waste.
At the risk of oversimplifying, let me draw the following image. The whole idea is based on isotopes. An isotope is a natural element with extra neutrons. It’s the same material; it has the same properties in the sense it has the same number of protons and electrons, which is the very essence of what gives it its identity. But it’s got some extra goodies packed in there called neutrons. The stable form has X number of them, while the form with extra neutrons is X+ some higher number. This is unstable in the sense it kicks out lots of energy trying to get rid of the excess. Stick enough of this material together in one place and it starts to get hot because all that radiating energy is hitting the other atoms and making them even more unstable. A nuclear bomb results from letting enough of this stuff collect in one place it can’t stay in one piece any more, and the whole thing kicks out it’s energy all at once.
Bombs require that the heavy isotope of the radioactive metal be something like 90-95% pure of that one isotope. Using these unstable metals to create heat to boil water and make a giant steam generator means using a far less purity, something like 5-10% (medical uses require about 25-30% pure). You cannot make a bomb easily from the generator grade metal. The whole thing of purifying is incredibly expensive and finicky just to get the 5%, and monumentally difficult for the bomb grade, such that only wealthy governments even think about it. The equipment runs into the billions of dollars just to get tiny amounts of just the low-grade stuff. It requires entirely different equipment to get above that. (Hint: Iran doesn’t even have the equipment to make bombs.)
So the generator grade is easier and cheaper, but still radioactive so as to get hot enough to boil water. The process of using uranium and plutonium to generate power requires a fairly simple mix,  in the sense that the radioactive parts all are the same isotope, the same “grade” of the metal with the same radioactive properties. They break down a little as they continue kicking out this energy. The process eventually makes it a little unstable because it becomes a mixture of more than one isotope after awhile. Once this stuff gets degraded by some 5%, the current policy is to pull them out. Keep in mind, this is 5% used up of that 5% pure metal isotope.
They have to do something with them because they can’t be used in the same simple process. They are still radioactive, but if you separate the rods and cushion them from each other with water, for instance, they are still dangerous to be around, but not going to heat up much. Ideally, you could take these rods and put them into a different kind of steam generator, which uses something other than water in a more expensive and complicated process, but it basically burns off those impurities. When the impurities are gone, it no longer works in this other process, so you pull them out and they are ready to go back into the first one again. We call this secondary process “reprocessing” the fuel.
You can trade them back and forth until the metal rods are stable, so stable you can handle them with your bare hands safely. Somehow, the idiots in government allowed the psychopaths in mining to convince them this was somehow risky, that there was some danger the stuff could be diverted from this exchange process and and used in bombs. That is, of course, not possible. As noted above, the process of making them safe for use in generating power makes them too wimpy for bombs.
Instead, our policy is to pull those rods after they are only 5% used up, and let them sit in a temporary bath until there’s no room left. Then we try to find places to store them. Is this not insane? It’s an incredible, massive waste-fraud-and-abuse. The process of running them back and forth between two types of reactor would lower the price of electricity, cutting the price by about 90%. That’s even after you purchase the much more expensive secondary reactors. It would also reduce the massive profits of the industry which lobbied and lied to Congress about the safety factors involved.
As I understand it, other countries, our allies, begged to buy up this “spent fuel” so they could use it in their secondary reactor system, and Congress refuses to sell. The US government continues operating based on mythology, while the psychopaths get rich and pass off some graft to the bureaucrats called “regulators” — they regulate everyone except the folks they were appointed to watch.
Once again, you need to understand something: Most of what’s wrong with government is special interests. What most people don’t understand is virtually nothing in government is left to run its own course. Not a single item in the massive regulations is left untouched. It’s pervasive. Every single item in the trillions of dollars government spends is subjected to this corruption. This business of nuclear energy is nasty only because of politics, but it wouldn’t matter what we are talking about, because politics has taken over the entire nation at every level of human activity. To use biblical terminology, you cannot lift a hand or foot anywhere in the world without someone in US government trying to tax it or confiscate whatever can be moved.
This is why people who actually know what’s going on will tell you our government cannot be fixed, because there is nothing to reform; this is the nature of the beast itself.