text: Spent nuclear fuel contains abundant fertile uranium and traces of fissile materials. Methods such as the PUREX process can be used to remove useful actinides for the production of active nuclear fuel.
  Another option is to find applications for the isotopes in nuclear waste so as to re-use them. Already, caesium-137, strontium-90 and a few other isotopes are extracted for certain industrial applications such as food irradiation and radioisotope thermoelectric generators. While re-use does not eliminate the need to manage radioisotopes, it can reduce the quantity of waste produced.
  The Nuclear Assisted Hydrocarbon Production Method, Canadian patent application 2,659,302, is a method for the temporary or permanent storage of nuclear waste materials comprising the placing of waste materials into one or more repositories or boreholes constructed into an unconventional oil formation. The thermal flux of the waste materials fractures the formation and alters the chemical and/or physical properties of hydrocarbon material within the subterranean formation to allow removal of the altered material. A mixture of hydrocarbons, hydrogen, and/or other formation fluids is produced from the formation. The radioactivity of high-level radioactive waste affords proliferation resistance to plutonium placed in the periphery of the repository or the deepest portion of a borehole.
  Breeder reactors can run on U-238 and transuranic elements, which comprise the majority of spent fuel radioactivity in the 1,000–100,000-year time span.