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Table 6.3-3. Sumnary of Fuel Cycle Reauirements for Nuclear Power
Systems Uti1 izing LWR Converters with and without FBRs
(with Recycle; High-Cost U308 Supply)
Fraction of Installed Nuclear
Capacity Permitted Outside Fraction of Reprocessing Fraction of Refabrication
Energy Center in Capacity to Handle Th Capacity to Handle
Option Year 2025 in Year 2035 232U in Year 2035
Pu recycle 0.61 0 0
Pu throwaway 1 .oo 0.95 0.57
Pu production minimized; 0.85 0.97 0.53
Pu-t0-23~U "transmutation"
Pu production not minimized; 0.79 0.34 0.20
Pu-to-23W "transmutation"
FBRs added. light Pu 0.56 0.38 0.27
transmutation
0.76 0.65 0.31
FBRs added, heavy Pu
transmutation
(5) The effect of an exploration program successful enough to reliably increase
the U308 resource base to 6.0 million ST below $160/lb would be considerably greater than
any of the above.
Thus, when analyzing the throwaway option, the size of the U308 resource
base and the uncertainty associated with it dominate the analysis.
From the discussion in Section 6.2 and Tables 6.3-2 and 6.3-3, the following conclu-
sions are drawn for LWR and LWR-FBR systems operating with recycle:
(1) With the high-cost U308 supply, the effect of plutonium recycle in LWRs would
be to increase the installed nuclear capacity to 600 GWe, and this would occur in about
year 2020. This would require, however, that as much as 40% of the nuclear capacity be
located in the energy centers. If the U308 supply should be as large as 6.0 million ST
below $160/lb, the maximum installed nuclear capacity would be 960 GWe, and this would
occur in about year 2045.
(2) If all plutonium were thrown away but fissile uranium were refabricated and
reloaded, the maximum installed nuclear capacity could be as large as 590 GWe with the
high-cost U308 supply.
designs which minimize the amount of plutonium produced. In addition, it requires the
development of an industry in which as much as 95% of the reprocessing capacity is devoted
to fuel containing thorium and as much as 57% of the refabrication capacity is devoted to
fuel containing 2321.1.
Attaining 590 GWe, however, requires the development of fuel
(3) If the plutonium produced in the system described immediately above were re-
fabricated and reloaded, the maximum installed nuclear capacity would increase to approxi-
mately 700 GWe, which is an increase in the maximum of approximately 110 GWe.