The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle - MIT Energy Initiative

CitationS and noteS
1. The methodology is described in the Appendix. A more detailed presentation appears in De Roo, Guillaume, and
John E. Parsons, A Methodology for Calculating the Levelized Cost of Electricity in Nuclear Power Systems with
Fuel Recycling, Energy Economics, forthcoming 2011, doi 10.1016/j.eneco.2011.01.008. Although a few parameter
inputs vary, the calculations follow by exactly the same steps. A spreadsheet containing the detailed calculations is
available on the web for download at http://web.mit.edu/ceepr/www/publications/workingpapers/DeRooParsons_
spreadsheet.xls.
2. In implementing the calculations we often have occasion to utilize the equivalent annually compounded discount
rate, r ≡exp(R)-1.
3. For economy of notation we write this and other formulas as if expenditures and production of electricity occur continuously
over time. Some readers may be more familiar with a version of the formulas in which expenditures and
production are expressed annually. Nothing of substance changes when one does the calculation this other way.
One just has to implement the appropriate redenomination of key variables. For example, the interest rate needs to
be translated from a continuously compounded variable to an annually compounded variable.
4. We calculate the value of the uranium recovered from the spent fuel at the conclusion of the first pass with reference
to the assumed cost of fresh uranium and the differential cost of fabricating ‘equivalent’ UOX fuel using reprocessed
uranium.
5. The conversion ratio is the ratio of the rate of production of new fissile transuranics to the rate of fissile transuranics
consumption by the neutron chain reaction. At equilibrium, if the transuranics mass ratio is equal to one, then the
conversion ratio is also equal to one. Around this point, the two ratios move together, with the conversion ratio having
a greater amplitude than the transuranics mass ratio.
6. In fact, it is not really the transuranics that are exchanged from one step of the cycle to another, but more generally,
a mix of transuranics and depleted uranium. Hence we should consider a price for the mix. But since at each step, the
new fuel can be obtained by addition of depleted uranium or transuranics to the mix, we can show that the value of
the mix is equal to the value of its separated elements. In our calculations, the price of depleted uranium is given as
an input parameter. Therefore, we can extract and reason with a price for the transuranics alone.
7. Guérin, L. and M. S. Kazimi, Impact of Alternative Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options on Infrastructure and Fuel Requirements,
Actinide and Waste Inventories, and Economics, MIT-NFC-TR-111, MIT, September 2009.
8. For example, the MIT (2003) study of The Future of Nuclear Power assumes different rates of inflation for maintenance
capital expenditures, operating costs, fuel costs and electricity when calculating its LCOEs for a nuclear power plant.
180 MIT STudy on The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle