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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah Senator Orrin Hatch says the Energy Department is on the verge of finishing a plan to reuse material from nuclear reactors.
If it's successful, the idea could help solve the country's nuclear waste dilemma. Experts say the new technology could also reawaken the nuclear power industry.
The push for reprocessing nuclear waste has the support Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and the state's congressional delegation.
Hatch said it could solve the nuclear waste problem that drove a consortium of power companies to propose building a waste site in Utah's west desert.
But critics say the technology, abandoned in the 1970s because it produced weapons-grade material, is unworkable and would cost billions of dollars.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
