On his visit to the United States, Mr Howard held talks with Energy Secretary Sam Bodman in Washington to discuss nuclear fuel leasing.
The US has floated a plan that would see countries lease nuclear fuel, rather than buy it.
It would mean that after the fuel was spent, the country which had used it would send the radioactive waste back to the country it bought it from.
Mr Howard has asked for more details about the plan but said Australia should not have to take back waste unless it began processing uranium to turn it into nuclear fuel.
Vaile urges open-mind
On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile reopened the debate on the issue and called for Australians be open-minded to the idea.
"Obviously, there'll be a wide range of views, but we need to keep an open mind on all these issues if we expect to extract benefit from selling the produce uranium)," Mr Vaile told Channel 9.
But Mr Howard said although Australia wanted to be fully informed about the US plan but he suggested it might not apply to Australia.
"We accept responsibilities for waste that we are responsible for and if we sell uranium to another country, that is quite separate from providing nuclear fuel," Mr Howard told reporters after his meetings with US administration officials.
"Nuclear fuel is not uranium - uranium is the raw material, if I can put it that way. It's like bauxite into alumina," he said.
Mr Howard denied there was any contradiction between his stance and that of Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile.
"I don't think Mr Vaile ever misunderstands those things," Mr Howard said.
US plan
The US government is floating the nuclear fuel leasing plan in a bid to limit the number of nuclear nations by creating a group of countries involved in processing uranium.
Australia has about 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves.
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