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Originally Posted by HarryT
You're talking, I think, about "Fast Breeder Reactors" such as the experimental one built at Dounraey in Scotland. The engineering problems are horrendous; because the plant operates at a much higher temperature than a conventional nuclear reactor it has to be cooled by liquid sodium rather than water, and the technology for that essentially had to be "invented" from scratch.
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The infamous Phenix plant had to be de decommisionned years ago...after having produced less power than it consumed... liquid sodium sounds like a sure recipe for accidents.
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Given the plentiful supply of Uranium in the world, it's difficult to make an economic case for FBRs, so it's doubtful that anyone's going to build a commercial one in the forseeable future.
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Not so AFAIK; the recent manoeuvres by AREVA in Africa are an example of the different companies jockeying for acces to (rather limited) reserves.
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It's called "vitrification"; there's a vitrification plant at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria, England, and it's now a standard method used to dispose of high and medium-level waste.
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The ultimate residue does get vitrified, but before, they extract as much as possible re-usable refuse to re-feed it in a working (normal) reactor (the so-call MOX).