	Despite these seemingly overwhelming benefits opposition makes a case against nuclear waste reprocessing by addressing several difficulties it could induce. One group, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), refers to the increased vulnerability of radioactive plutonium in transport and storage before reprocessing. They present the argument that reprocessing plants will increase the risk of malicious parties stealing the plutonium, of which a small amount (< 20 lbs) is needed to create a nuclear weapon. Since the United States’ store of plutonium was already at 250 metric tons in 20096, it is understandable why an instantaneous increase before reprocessing poses a growing concern. However, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently provides ample protection and regulation in the transportation and storage of spent nuclear fuel. Additionally, the commission states “Over the last 40 years, thousands of shipments of commercially generated spent nuclear fuel have been made throughout the United States without causing any radiological releases to the environment or harm to the public.” Hence, the risk of mishaps during transportation is relatively low. 
	Additionally, the UCS claims that it would be very expensive to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, estimating net costs of $3 to $4.5 billion dollars per year. While this may be true for some processes, the molten salt reactor in development by Transatomic Power estimates that its reactor would generate enough energy to compensate the costs. Although they estimate the overnight cost for each of their reactors to be $1.7 billion, this saves the US billions still in comparison to the projected clean-up cost of over $300 billion required to “contain” the several tons of nuclear waste that would be generated by 2070.  
	As previously addressed, reprocessing spent nuclear fuel would create less nuclear waste to be stored in hope for it containment. Currently, the U.S. stores its nuclear waste in spent fuel pools at reaction sites, or in dry casket containers. This proved to carry some risk in February of 2014, when one of the stored drums in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, burst, spilling nuclear waste throughout the plant. The accident was caused by negligence to ensure that inorganic cat litter, which is used to soak up liquid waste without having it react with, was used in the drum and not its organic counterpart. This puts into perspective the liability that is spent nuclear fuel from light water reactors in the United States.
	Finally, nuclear waste reprocessing is not a new concept and has indeed been applied over the last 50 years, in several countries. In particular, France, Japan and Russia have been using light water reactors for reprocessing and are currently developing new methods. France, for example, has been working on a process for the co-extraction of actinides for fuel in its COEX project.  
