The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle - MIT Energy Initiative

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LWR-FR, the breeder configuration The last fuel cycle is one in which fast reactors are used in the breeder configuration to breed (or make) more fuel than they consume. As breeders are capable of using uranium much more efficiently than LWRs, the period of resource durability and the potential benefits of resources 15 rise to thousands of years. On the other hand, these future benefits bring about more current burdens in terms of the technological challenges attached to developing such fuel cycles, the economic burdens arising from the additional investments that need to be made in R&D and the building of additional facilities as well as all the further safety and security concerns. To conclude, Gen. 1 will ultimately bear significant safety, security and economic burdens for future generations while facilitating adequate energy supplies and minimizing the long-term waste problems. In Figure D.5 this breeder fuel cycle is assessed and compared with the once-through fuel cycle. The dark-grey ellipse outlined in red indicates the long-terms benefits of resource durability. The type of concerns behind the transmutation approach and this type of fuel cycle (the breeders) are similar, but all these concerns increase when fast reactors enter into the breeder configuration formula. There are two reasons for this: 1) the breeder fuel cycle system is based on the notion that eventually all the LWRs will be phased out and the whole energy production process will be based on breeders (and on the multiple recycling of waste), which will involve building more fast reactors and, thus, creating more economic burdens for this generation and 2) this fuel cycle is primarily based on plutonium, which gives rise to further security concerns. ComparinG Fuel CyCleS If we merge the alternatives into an impact table, we can evaluate the four cycles according to the proposed value criteria (expressed in terms of impacts); the alternatives are compared solely on the basis of a qualitative assessment of the single value criteria. High, medium and Low are chosen as the ranking designations. The scorecard is completed by adding the three traffic light colors to denote the ranking of the alternatives according to one single value criterion. Red stands for the most unfavorable option, green for the most favorable and amber indicates that either there is barely a difference between the alternatives, or the consequences are intermediate, 16 see in this connection the scorecard given in Table D.5. When assessing burdens, high impacts are unfavorable and thus colored red while amber and green are used consecutively. When benefits are rated (such as the benefits of energy production) high impacts are colored green. appendix d: Intergenerational equity considerations of Fuel cycle choices 221
Figure d.5 breeder Consequences LWR-FR (Breeder configuration) Environmental Friendliness Mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication Transport of spent and recycled fuel Public Safety reactor operation and decommissioning period Spent fuel storage — 50 years on top of Pal Final disposal of SF and other waste — between 50 and up to 200 Mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication uranium enrichment Security reactor operation and decommissioning period Spent fuel storage — 50 years on top of Pal Final disposal of SF and other waste — 100 years after Pal Resource Durability consuming uranium energy production with u — 100 years retrievable stored/disposed of spent fuel Economic Viability Building reprocessing plants and Frs Safety measures — until the end of retrieval period Geological disposal Technical Applicability reprocessing & fuel fabrication applying fast reactors Generation 1 Generation 1 Gen n note: The elements indicated in red represent the divergences from current practice in the u.S. as illustrated in Fig. 2. 222 MIT STudy on The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle
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Other Reports in This Series The Fu
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MIT Nuclear Fuel Cycle Study Adviso
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vi MIT STudy on The FuTure oF nucle
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viii MIT STudy on The FuTure oF nuc
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Study Findings and Recommendations
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Recommendation We recommend that a
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p Innovative nuclear energy applica
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p In line with many of our R&D reco
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The “once through” or open fuel
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have been implemented slowly. This
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Recommendation We recommend that th
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oped policies for specific wastes r
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nuClear Fuel CyCleS The united Stat
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- The primary differences were in t
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Recommendation Integrated system st
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Table 1.2 Summary of R&D Recommenda
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18 MIT STudy on The FuTure oF nucle
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the once-through Fuel Cycle for lig
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tricity costs. Waste management cos
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Figure 2.3 partial recycle of lWr S
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history of the nuclear Fuel Cycle B
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• What is the impact of timing of
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nuclear fuel cycles, the wastes (SN
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Because ore demand is closely coupl
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eStimatinG Future CoStS oF uranium
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Figure 3.3 relative uranium Cost vs
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Figure 3.4 100 year price trend for
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Stockpiling If supply interruption
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CitationS and noteS 1. Uranium 2007
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If SNF is to be shipped, typically
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a policy that maintains fuel cycle
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Dry cask storage is used for short
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For decommissioned sites, our econo
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with its attractiveness of jobs and
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2. The United States should create
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Table 5.1 United States Waste Class
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table 5.3 examples of operational G
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Waste Isolation Pilot Plant The uni
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Successful repository programs are
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designed with limited SNF storage c
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CitationS and noteS 1. A Handbook f
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energy spectrum centered at higher
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light Water reactor Fuel technical
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(fertile-free) to CR=1.0 (break-eve
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license. However, fuel reprocessing
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Figure 6.4 densification Factors as
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As expected, the breeder installed
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Figure 6.8 shows the development of
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Table 6.8 Uranium Cost in $/kg, Sta
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Figure 6.11 location of the tru inv
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SenSitivity analySiS: alternative a
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Fast reactor technical Characterist
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cooled fast reactor (SFR) fueled by
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Summary oF ConCluSionS Among the in
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[hoffman et al., 2006] e.a. hoffman
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This chapter reports the cost of th
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Table 7.1 Input Parameter Assumptio
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Twice-Through Cycle Table 7.3 shows
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Table 7.4 The LCOE for the Fast Rea
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higher cost of disposal of the spen
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110 MIT STudy on The FuTure oF nucl
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power program might be used, as is
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Figure 8.1 Weapons-usability Charac
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inStitutional approaCheS to Fuel Cy
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the iaea additional protocol an Iae
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in technology innovation are likely
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Reprocessing choices Commercial rep
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Table 8.2 Safeguard Technical Objec
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port for nuclear power over the per
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Those Americans who have an opinion
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who are very concerned with global
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p Waste management must be integrat
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options because we do not know toda
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Nuclear Security. Nonproliferation
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There have been major changes in ou
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There are large financial and polic
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Figure 3A.2 shows the results. As c
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Figure A.3 plots Eq (2), where adva
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Again, assuming that q = 0.29, the
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Note that Eq. [7] suggests employin
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Figure 3b.1 Cumulative probability
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Figure 5a.1 decay of radioactivity
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and 241 Am. For the short term, hea
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Repository Engineering All reposito
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epreSentative repoSitory deSiGnS: u
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orehole diSpoSal There are three me
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table 7a.1 list of variables , 1 lc
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