Recycling the waste, as the French do, is often held up by lay people and politicians in the United States as a solution to this country’s waste problem.

When waste is recycled, the uranium and plutonium can be separated out from used nuclear fuel and fed back into a reactor. Critics hate it because the process of separating out the pearl jewelry plutonium enriches the element to something closer to what’s needed to build a nuclear bomb. Supporters like it because it reduces the need to go out and mine new uranium for fuel.

But recycling isn’t an ironclad solution for biwa pearl waste. It may reduce the amount of high level waste left over — the French say it reduces it by a factor of eight, but others like Lyman argue it’s more like a factor of two. Either way, there is still some waste leftover.

“There’s no process that doesn’t have waste at the akoya pearl end,” said Steven Kraft, senior director of used fuel management at the industry’s own Nuclear Energy Institute.

Or as Jonathan Burton, an expert in nuclear waste at the consultancy Accenture, put it, “There’s only one solution that’s OK, and that’s geologic disposal.”

The 40-feet deep pool, about the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, is the current home to thousands of uranium-filled fuel rods — the radioactive byproducts of a nuclear reactor. The men are using a robotic arm to position the rods sitting at the bottom of the pool.

Pools such as this one are a temporary solution to a pearl jewelry very long term problem: the hotly contested debate over what to do with the country’s nuclear waste.

Storing nuclear waste on site in pools, or in what’s called “dry casks” outside the plant, seems an acceptable solution for the next several decades at existing plants. But nuclear waste remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years, far longer than the manmade pools are likely to biwa pearl survive.

With global warming concerns and rising power demand, the idea of using more nuclear power is gaining traction. The Texas plant is among dozens nationwide that have applied to build more reactors.

But some say a more permanent solution should be found before more new plants are built.

“The industry wants to build now and worry about the akoya pearl waste later,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. But to build “dozens or hundreds of new plants when we don’t have any plausible means forward on waste disposable is irresponsible.”

Last month, Toyota and NHTSA warned drivers to remove the mats in certain models or risk a forced-down accelerator pedal that could lead to a crash. Toyota plans a recall to fix the problem, and began sending notifications this week to Toyota and Lexus vehicle owners about the issue.

But the NHTSA took issue with how Toyota worded its warnings. The pearl jewelry agency released a statement Wednesday accusing the world’s largest automaker of sending a letter to owners with “inaccurate and misleading information.”

Toyota’s letter told owners that NHTSA said “no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured.” The agency took those as fighting words: In its view, the vehicles have an underlying defect that means floor mats can’t be properly secured.

NHTSA recommends that consumers remove the floor mats from affected cars to eliminate the risk that a mat will become stuck and trap the accelerator. But that is “simply an interim measure,” the agency said. It won’t consider the problem solved until Toyota comes up with “a suitable vehicle-based solution.”

The standoff could have turned ugly, but when called out on the biwa pearl issue, Toyota backed down fast.

“Toyota agrees with NHTSA’s position that the removal of floor mats is an interim measure and that further vehicle-based action is required,” the company said in a statement released late Wednesday. “We are in the process of developing vehicle-based remedies.”

Toyota has not yet launched an official recall campaign, but it plans to for the akoya pearl following models: 2007-2010 Camry, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2004-2009 Prius, 2005-2010 Tacoma and 2007-2010 Tundra.

The Lexus models facing the safety recall are the 2007-2010 ES 350, and the 2006-2010 IS 250 and IS 350. To top of page