Engineering360: "Microbots capable of cleaning radioactive waste"

It bothers me that the article appears to confuse "radioactive waste" with "uranium." Uranium is, of course, one component of the "waste" from a thermal reactor, but there are also many fission products--the remainder after U-235 or Pu-239 are split in the fission process. I realize that this is early research, but many nuclides need to be added to the capabilities of the microbots. I used "waste" in quotes, because it is actually "used fuel," because it can be used again in fast reactors to use the rest of the energy in the initial uranium charge.

I see this development as a step in the right direction. Keeping radioactive power plants going is a mistake. We have so many nuclear waste dumps overflowing now, where is the next one going? If the microbots could be used to reduce the volume at the dumps as a start, it would be a very good development for lifetimes of employment. We need other methods of producing electricity more on a local level to reduce the transmission problems without producing by byproducts to make nuclear weapons.

Randolph: Read my last sentence again, please. With reuse in a fast neutron reactor, we can get around 100 times more energy from the same uranium (because it uses so little in thermal reactors before it gets "poisoned.") This also means we have 100 times less waste that is far less radioactive, because the fast reactor uses the highly radioactive transuranic actinides for energy instead of having them in the waste stream.