The French have been doing it for decades already with not a single casualty:
> https://www.orano.group/en/nuclear-expertise/from-exploratio...
It's not that they are doing the recycling in a cookie factory.
> https://www.orano.group/en/nuclear-expertise/from-exploratio...
It's not that they are doing the recycling in a cookie factory.
The reality is that the French try hard to put high-level waste deep in under the ground. After more than 50 years of atomic plants and nearly 80 of lab reactors the French haven't a single adequate repository.
The most advanced project may open in 2025. An English concise description is already amusing, please read it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_...
A more complete version, in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cig%C3%A9o
The Marcoule site where MOX fuel is manufactured had an explosion in 2011, which did result in a fatality.
You are right that we have a lot of plutonium that we can not use. The intent of superphenix was to use this plutonium. It failed.
Pity that it got closed, I hope technical issues are fixed and a new device based on better understanding replaces it.
That would be a long pipeline, because La Hague is facing the channel, not the north sea.