The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle - MIT Energy Initiative

Chapter 7 — Economics
introduCtion
For several decades, the main advantage of recycling nuclear fuel was thought to be economizing
on the consumption of raw uranium. The resource was believed to be in short supply,
while the demand for nuclear energy was expected to grow dramatically, driving up
the price of uranium. The expense of recycling would soon be justified by the savings from
avoided purchases of the raw uranium. This vision turned out to be wrong. Uranium proved
to be more plentiful than forecasted, and the growth in nuclear power less than forecasted.
Moreover, the new fuel and reactor technologies necessary for recycling arrived with more
caveats and higher costs than had been expected.
Perhaps one day recycling will justify itself because it economizes on the consumption of
raw uranium. Only time will tell. But the current failure of this vision may be salutary if it
forces us to broaden our sights and recognize that different fuel cycles entail several other
tradeoffs. Some of these tradeoffs are economic, while others are non-economic.
One key economic tradeoff involves the cost of disposal of materials deemed wastes. The
critical distinction across the different cycles is in the handling of some of the transuranic
elements created in a reactor. Recycling some of these transuranics changes the profile of
waste streams over time. In some cases, recycling may lower the discounted cost of disposal,
while in other cases it may increase the discounted cost of disposal. The potential economic
benefits of an alternative waste stream profile is often overlooked because of the focus on
economizing on the consumption of raw uranium. If a fuel cycle is appropriately designed
to optimize the ultimate cost of disposal, it could economically justify the extra expense of
recycling independently of any benefit from economizing on the consumption of raw uranium.
As the results of this chapter show, this is not yet the case with any of the fuel cycles
considered in this report. However, future research on fuel cycles should pay closer attention
to the economic tradeoff produced by the design of different waste streams.
The non-economic tradeoffs arise on a wide range of issues, including proliferation concerns,
health and safety issues as well as waste disposal. Different fuel cycles present different
relative advantages and disadvantages with respect to these various issues. Any of these
non-economic tradeoffs might justify society’s choice of a given fuel cycle, even if that cycle
only marginally economized on uranium consumption and required expensive separations
or reactors. This chapter focuses exclusively on a comparison of the total cost of different
fuel cycles, although cost is only one factor in society’s choice of a fuel cycle. Where other
factors argue in favor of a fuel cycle that is more expensive, one can think of the extra cost
as the price paid to purchase these other benefits.
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