The Economic, repository and proliferation implications of advanced nuclear fuel cycle

Deinert, Mark ; Cady, K B

关键词: AR FACILITIES;    ACTINIDES;    BURNERS;    ECONOMICS;    FAST REACTORS;    NUCLEAR FUELS;    POWER GENERATION;    POWER REACTORS;    PRODUCTION;    PROLIFERATION;    RECYCLING;    REPROCESSING;    SPENT FUELS;    URANIUM DIOXIDE;    WASTES;    WATER;    YUCCA MOUNTAIN;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1024391
RP-ID  :  DOE/ID/14834
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1024391
Others  :  TRN: US201119%%349

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

The goal of this project was to compare the effects of recycling actinides using fast burner reactors, with recycle that would be done using inert matrix fuel burned in conventional light water reactors. In the fast reactor option, actinides from both spent light water and fast reactor fuel would be recycled. In the inert matrix fuel option, actinides from spent light water fuel would be recycled, but the spent inert matrix fuel would not be reprocessed. The comparison was done over a limited 100-year time horizon. The economic, repository and proliferation implications of these options all hinge on the composition of isotopic byproducts of power production. We took the perspective that back-end economics would be affected by the cost of spent fuel reprocessing (whether conventional uranium dioxide fuel, or fast reactor fuel), fuel manufacture, and ultimate disposal of high level waste in a Yucca Mountain like geological repository. Central to understanding these costs was determining the overall amount of reprocessing needed to implement a fast burner, or inert matrix fuel, recycle program. The total quantity of high level waste requiring geological disposal (along with its thermal output), and the cost of reprocessing were also analyzed. A major advantage of the inert matrix fuel option is that it could in principle be implemented using the existing fleet of commercial power reactors. A central finding of this project was that recycling actinides using an inert matrix fuel could achieve reductions in overall actinide production that are nearly very close to those that could be achieved by recycling the actinides using a fast burner reactor.