environmentalists; would you approve of a nuclear power station that used waste from the old reactors as fuel?

After the rods have been been used for a some time, the amount of heat produced decreases, because the waste products, which are radioactive, and do produce heat, don't produce as much heat as the uranium or thorium fuel. The radioactive process is different, fission in the fuel, decay in the waste. And fission produces much more heat than decay. So at some point the fuel rods aren't producing enough energy for use, and then they are replaced. However they are still radioactive and hot. It just isn't cost effective to try to collect the heat.

Of cause for safety reasons the neutralisation of burnt nuclear fuel sounds good,but considering that nuclear power is only a by-product of military research into devastating weapons, one can't help but think, are they more interest in researching the next generation of nuclear weapons.We have in truth not paid much attention to the research into sustainable energy. And why not? What is the deep laying reason for this? because there's a reason.

Politicians shy away from the question of addressing sustainable energy, especially liberal ones,why? Liberal politicians were the first to criticise wind power,as a "Hippy happening" but at the moment some European countries produce 17% of their energy by wind power,and sun power is a page that is yet, to be opened. Whose errands are our politicians running?

Has the lessen of Chernobyl be forgotten, and do you think that the radio active material that was blown into the atmosphere, has halved. As regards Cancer,one should look at the track record of Sellafield ( Windscale) here 750 terabecquerels were accidentally released into the atmosphere.

I would be glad to see the spent fuel rods put to good use instead of stored for eventual disaster. They are mainly stored in open swimming pool type holding. Grand Gulf Nuclear plant (Louisiana) stores spent fuel rods in those type of pools. I wonder to this day if they made it securely through Katrina and Rita. Doubt one could get that from FOIA...

The other problems with nuke fuel is the large bodies of water required to cool the towers. When you heat the lakes, rivers, creeks etc. it causes imbalances in the ecosystem.

It is a good idea, but there are many potential problems. Remember this haz waste must be transported and that is another set of problems about to occur.

I've always been a big supporter of nuclear power. But then again, I don't much consider myself to be an environmentalist. Reusable nuclear fuel sounds like a great idea though, and I can't really think of any negatives for it.

Yes, I think fast neutron reactors potentially resolve problems with waste, but construction of the plants, processing and transport of the fuel has a huge carbon footprint, and I don't feel that nuclear is a necessary solution to AGW, considering the potential of advances in solar, wind, biofuel and energy efficiency.

Yes, but only to make the nuclear waste less volatile. I personally don't like the idea of nuclear power. (used to live in a country not too far away from the city of Chernobyl). But yes, might as well use up the nukes we dug up from the ground.

I support nuclear provided it is cost effective and obeys laws ensuring waste is handled properly and terrorism/meltdown risks are minimised.

That's all nuclear power; it's much cleaner than fossil fuels in both air pollution and CO2.

Yes. that's what they do in France. So what in the US is dangerous long-lived waste, in France is recycled fuel, and the result is something like a hundred-fold increase in energy production from the same amount of fuel because you eventually use up the 238U not just the 235U.

Fission is evil bad start to finish... fusion I can support.