The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle - MIT Energy Initiative

This chapter reports the cost of the three major fuel cycles discussed in this report: the Once-
Through Cycle, a Twice-Through Cycle, and a Fast Reactor Recycle. For the Fast Reactor
Recycle the chapter gives results for three different conversion ratios spanning cycles from
burner to breeder: these ratios are 0.5, 1.0 and 1.2. The cycles were described in more detail
in Chapter 6, and additional information is also given in the Appendix to this Chapter.
The measure of cost applied in this chapter is the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The
levelized cost takes a full accounting of all costs in a given fuel cycle and allocates them to
the electricity produced by the cycle over time. The levelized cost is the constant price that
would have to be charged in order to recover all of the costs expended to produce the electricity,
including a return on capital. This is a busbar cost that does not include the transmission
and distribution costs required to bring the electricity to a particular customer. A
formal mathematical definition of LCOE is provided in the Appendix to this chapter. Levelized
cost is a standard measure for comparing alternative baseload electricity generating
technologies, and employs principles that are standard for comparing alternative technologies
in any industry.
Before diving into detailed assumptions and results, two general points should be noted.
unCertainty
The most important fact to keep in mind in considering any estimate of the cost of alternative
fuel cycles is the high degree of uncertainty about key components of each cycle.
First, there is uncertainty about the cost of disposing of the high level wastes from each cycle.
While the Once-Through Cycle would seem to be an established technology, the true cost of
waste disposal remains uncertain. Political disputes continue to delay the completion and
operation of a geologic repository in the U.S. The costs already incurred on construction at
Yucca Mountain and the estimates of completion costs under earlier pronouncements on
safety standards are a useful guide for estimating waste disposal costs, but not as dispositive
as real experience with a fully licensed and operating facility. The cost of disposing of spent
MOX fuel is a conjecture unconstrained by actual experience since the countries currently
reprocessing and fabricating MOX fuel do not anticipate geologic disposal of the spent
MOX, but haven’t formalized any alternative disposition. The U.S. had banned reprocessing
of spent commercial reactor fuel, and, although the ban has since been lifted there is
nevertheless no established regulatory structure for the disposal of the separated high level
waste from reprocessing of commercial fuel. Therefore any estimates for the cost of geologic
disposal of these wastes must be based on conjectured extrapolations from the standards
imposed on unreprocessed spent fuel. If the U.S. were to allow reprocessing, the actual
regulations might yield a very different waste disposal cost.
Second, there is great uncertainty about the cost of reprocessing spent fuel and the cost
of fabricating the recycled fuel. This may be surprising given that the PUREX process for
chemically separating plutonium was developed at the dawn of the nuclear age. Nevertheless,
only two countries, the French and the British, have built and operated commercial
scale plants that extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel, as well as plants for fabricating
MOX fuel from the separated plutonium. The Japanese are only now moving to commercial
operation their new plant at Rokkasho. Three data points count as a very small number for
generating reliable estimates of cost. Moreover, these plants have often been built by state
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