scholarly journals Integration of the Back-end of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: An Overview

MRS Advances ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 253-264
Author(s):  
François Diaz-Maurin ◽  
Rodney C. Ewing
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Waste Management ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Interim Storage ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fully Coupled ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACTRecent efforts have been made toward the integration of the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. The back-end integration seeks to address several management challenges: 1) current storage practices are not optimized for transport and disposal; 2) the impact of interim storage on the disposal strategy needs to be evaluated; and 3) the back-end is affected by—and affects—nuclear fuel cycle and energy policy choices. The back-end integration accounts for the various processes of nuclear waste management—onsite storage, consolidated storage, transport and geological disposal. Ideally, these processes should be fully coupled so that benefits and impacts can be assessed at the level of the full fuel cycle. The paper summarizes the causes and consequences of the absence of integration at the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S., critically reviews ongoing integration efforts, and suggests a framework that would support the back-end integration.

Overview of the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Waste Forms Development

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Gray ◽  
John Vienna ◽  
Patricia Paviet
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
High Level Waste ◽  
Fuel Cycles ◽  
Waste Forms ◽  
The U.S

In order to maintain the U.S. domestic nuclear capability, its scientific technical leadership, and to keep our options open for closing the nuclear fuel cycle, the Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) invests in various R&D programs to identify and resolve technical challenges related to the sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle. Sustainable fuel cycles are those that improve uranium resource utilization, maximize energy generation, minimize waste generation, improve safety and limit proliferation risk. DOE-NE chartered a Study on the evaluation and screening of nuclear fuel cycle options, to provide information about the potential benefits and challenges of nuclear fuel cycle options and to identify a relatively small number of promising fuel cycle options with the potential for achieving substantial improvements compared to the current nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. The identification of these promising fuel cycles helps in focusing and strengthening the U.S. R&D investment needed to support the set of promising fuel cycle system options and nuclear material management approaches. DOE-NE is developing and evaluating advanced technologies for the immobilization of waste issued from aqueous and electrochemical recycling activities including off-gas treatment and advanced fuel fabrication. The long-term scope of waste form development and performance activities includes not only the development, demonstration, and technical maturation of advanced waste management concepts but also the development and parameterization of defensible models to predict the long-term performance of waste forms in geologic disposal. Along with the finding of the Evaluation and Screening Study will be presented the major research efforts that are underway for the development and demonstration of waste forms and processes including glass ceramic for high-level waste raffinate, alloy waste forms and glass ceramics composites for HLW from the electrochemical processing of fast reactor fuels, and high durability waste forms for radioiodine.

scholarly journals Sustainability Features of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 2377-2398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Passerini ◽  
Mujid Kazimi
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Base Line ◽  
Energy Potential ◽  
Fuel Cycle Analysis ◽  
The Impact

The nuclear fuel cycle is the series of stages that nuclear fuel materials go through in a cradle to grave framework. The Once Through Cycle (OTC) is the current fuel cycle implemented in the United States; in which an appropriate form of the fuel is irradiated through a nuclear reactor only once before it is disposed of as waste. The discharged fuel contains materials that can be suitable for use as fuel. Thus, different types of fuel recycling technologies may be introduced in order to more fully utilize the energy potential of the fuel, or reduce the environmental impacts and proliferation concerns about the discarded fuel materials. Nuclear fuel cycle systems analysis is applied in this paper to attain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of fuel cycle alternatives. Through the use of the nuclear fuel cycle analysis code CAFCA (Code for Advanced Fuel Cycle Analysis), the impact of a number of recycling technologies and the associated fuel cycle options is explored in the context of the U.S. energy scenario over 100 years. Particular focus is given to the quantification of Uranium utilization, the amount of Transuranic Material (TRU) generated and the economics of the different options compared to the base-line case, the OTC option. It is concluded that LWRs and the OTC are likely to dominate the nuclear energy supply system for the period considered due to limitations on availability of TRU to initiate recycling technologies. While the introduction of U-235 initiated fast reactors can accelerate their penetration of the nuclear energy system, their higher capital cost may lead to continued preference for the LWR-OTC cycle.

scholarly journals The Need for Integrating the Back End of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in the United States of America

MRS Advances ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (19) ◽  
pp. 991-1003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evaristo J. Bonano ◽  
Elena A. Kalinina ◽  
Peter N. Swift
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Dry Storage ◽  
The Us

ABSTRACTCurrent practice for commercial spent nuclear fuel management in the United States of America (US) includes storage of spent fuel in both pools and dry storage cask systems at nuclear power plants. Most storage pools are filled to their operational capacity, and management of the approximately 2,200 metric tons of spent fuel newly discharged each year requires transferring older and cooler fuel from pools into dry storage. In the absence of a repository that can accept spent fuel for permanent disposal, projections indicate that the US will have approximately 134,000 metric tons of spent fuel in dry storage by mid-century when the last plants in the current reactor fleet are decommissioned. Current designs for storage systems rely on large dual-purpose (storage and transportation) canisters that are not optimized for disposal. Various options exist in the US for improving integration of management practices across the entire back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Evaluating the Collective Radiation Dose to Workers from the U.S. Once-Through Nuclear Fuel Cycle

2014 ◽  
Vol 185 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L. Krahn ◽  
Allen G. Croff ◽  
Bethany L. Smith ◽  
James H. Clarke ◽  
Andrew G. Sowder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiation Dose ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The U.S

scholarly journals Financing Strategies for a Nuclear Fuel Cycle Facility

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shropshire ◽  
Jess Chandler
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sunk Costs ◽  
Government Ownership ◽  
Private Industry ◽  
Unit Costs ◽  
The Government

To help meet the nation’s energy needs, recycling of partially used nuclear fuel is required to close the nuclear fuel cycle, but implementing this step will require considerable investment. This report evaluates financing scenarios for integrating recycling facilities into the nuclear fuel cycle. A range of options from fully government owned to fully private owned were evaluated using DPL (Decision Programming Language 6.0), which can systematically optimize outcomes based on user-defined criteria (e.g., lowest life-cycle cost, lowest unit cost). This evaluation concludes that the lowest unit costs and lifetime costs are found for a fully government-owned financing strategy, due to government forgiveness of debt as sunk costs. However, this does not mean that the facilities should necessarily be constructed and operated by the government. The costs for hybrid combinations of public and private (commercial) financed options can compete under some circumstances with the costs of the government option. This analysis shows that commercial operations have potential to be economical, but there is presently no incentive for private industry involvement. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) currently establishes government ownership of partially used commercial nuclear fuel. In addition, the recently announced Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) suggests fuels from several countries will be recycled in the United States as part of an international governmental agreement; this also assumes government ownership. Overwhelmingly, uncertainty in annual facility capacity led to the greatest variations in unit costs necessary for recovery of operating and capital expenditures; the ability to determine annual capacity will be a driving factor in setting unit costs. For private ventures, the costs of capital, especially equity interest rates, dominate the balance sheet; and the annual operating costs, forgiveness of debt, and overnight costs dominate the costs computed for the government case. The uncertainty in operations, leading to lower than optimal processing rates (or annual plant throughput), is the most detrimental issue to achieving low unit costs. Conversely, lowering debt interest rates and the required return on investments can reduce costs for private industry.

Long Term Storage of Nuclear Spent Fuel as Key Role of Japan’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Until 2100: Cost and Benefit

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadahiro Katsuta
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
Storage Site ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Final Disposal ◽  
Enriched Uranium ◽  
Interim Storage ◽  
Reprocessing Plant

Political and technical advantages to introduce spent nuclear fuel interim storage into Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle are examined. Once Rokkasho reprocessing plant starts operation, 80,000 tHM of spent Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) fuel must be stored in an Away From Reactor (AFR) interim storage site until 2100. If a succeeding reprocessing plant starts operating, the spent LEU will reach its peak of 30,000 tHM before 2050, and then will decrease until the end of the second reprocessing plant operation. Throughput of the second reprocessing plant is assumed as twice of that of Rokassho reprocessing plant, indeed 1,600tHM/year. On the other hand, tripled number of final disposal sites for High Level Nuclear Waste (HLW) will be necessary with this condition. Besides, large amount of plutonium surplus will occur, even if First Breeder Reactors (FBR)s consume the plutonium. At maximum, plutonium surplus will reach almost 500 tons. These results indicate that current nuclear policy does not solve the spent fuel problems but rather complicates them. Thus, reprocessing policy could put off the problems in spent fuel interim storage capacity and other issues could appear such as difficulties in large amount of HLW final disposal management or separated plutonium management. If there is no reprocessing or MOX use, the amount of spent fuel will reach over 115,000 tones at the year of 2100. However, the spent fuel management could be simplified and also the cost and the security would be improved by using an interim storage primarily.

Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program, Used Fuel Disposition Campaign Objective, Mission, Plans, and Activity Status

2010 ◽  
Vol 1265 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Mark Nutt ◽  
Mark Peters ◽  
Peter Swift ◽  
Kevin McMahon ◽  
Ken Sorenson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research And Development ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Radioactive Material ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Geologic Repository ◽  
Used Nuclear Fuel

AbstractThe safe management and disposition of used nuclear fuel and/or high level nuclear waste is a fundamental aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle. The United States currently utilizes a once-through fuel cycle where used nuclear fuel is stored on-site in either wet pools or in dry storage systems with ultimate disposal in a deep mined geologic repository envisioned. However, a decision not to use the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository will result in longer interim storage at reactor sites than previously planned. In addition, alternatives to the once-through fuel cycle are being considered and a variety of options are being explored under the U.S. Department of Energy's Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program.These two factors lead to the need to develop a credible strategy for managing radioactive wastes from any future nuclear fuel cycle in order to provide acceptable disposition pathways for all wastes regardless of transmutation system technology, fuel reprocessing scheme(s), and/or the selected fuel cycle. These disposition paths will involve both the storing of radioactive material for some period of time and the ultimate disposal of radioactive waste.To address the challenges associated with waste management, the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy established the Used Fuel Disposition Campaign within its Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program in the summer of 2009. The mission of the Used Fuel Disposition Campaign is to identify alternatives and conduct scientific research and technology development to enable storage and disposal of used nuclear fuel and wastes generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles. The near-and long-term objectives of the Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program and it's Used Fuel Disposition Campaign are presented.

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