Science: Six months into a Department of Energy (DOE) program to recycle spent nuclear fuel by means of an experimental method, the agency has announced plans to use more established technology to help reach its objective. Using standard techniques, currently used mainly by the French and Japanese nuclear industries, would be cheaper in the short term than the proposed UREX1a experimental method that breaks down used fuel into reusable chemical parts. However, UREX1a has a number of safeguards that limit proliferation risks. DOE is abandoning "enhanced proliferation resistance in the interest of building a reprocessing plant quickly," says Frank von Hippel, a Princeton physicist who studies security issues related to the civil nuclear industry.

Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: Proliferation Resistant Recycling
Science article