Three Rs: Repository, Reprocessing and Recycling
Abstract: Our current (and growing) inventory of "once through" used nuclear fuel is an energy asset. We can realize maximum value of this asset by: 1. Utilizing established processes—which importantly do not separate pure plutonium, thus markedly reducing proliferation concerns—to recycle the fuel into a usable form; 2. Re-fissioning the recycled fuel in a sodium-cooled reactor to produce electricity, which helps meet growing demand for electricity; and 3. Producing final waste by this process that has significantly reduced radiological toxicity, which allows for improved repository characteristics and shorter management time as compared to “once through” and reprocessing technologies currently in use today.
Bio: Eric P Loewen has worked for 35 years at the intersection of nuclear science and technology in the nuclear navy, nuclear waste processing, a national laboratory, and now as Chief Consulting Engineer, Advanced Plants Technology, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), in Wilmington, North Carolina. Chair, Senior Industry Advisory Panel, Generation IV International Forum (SIAP-GIF).
Loewen served as the American Nuclear Society's 2005 Congressional Fellow, working in the office of Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE). Joining the Idaho National Laboratory in 1999, he contributed to the development of a Generation IV lead-bismuth cooled reactor. He was Director of Research, Molten Metal Technology in Fall River, Massachusetts. He served 10 years in the U.S. Navy.
During his career, Loewen has received several awards, including 2018 NAYGN Continental SENSEI Award; the Presidential Citation and Young Members Advancement and Public Communication awards of the American Nuclear Society; the Outstanding Mentor and Outstanding Education Volunteer of the Year awards of the DOE. Currently has 18 issued patents. He also served as a President of American Nuclear Society. Loewen received his BA in Chemistry and Math with a minor in Physics from Western State College and, MS in Nuclear Engineering and PhD in Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
