The FuTure oF nuclear Fuel cycle - MIT Energy Initiative

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Final disposal of spent fuel and other waste: alt. 3 is the best option as the actinides are removed and transmuted. The two first alternatives score lower as they use enriched uranium and make Pu in the cycle. The worst option is the last one, because it is a pure Pu cycle; in the waste stream of a breeder reactor, there are still Pu isotopes that need to be disposed of. Reprocessing and applying fast reactors The two first alternatives solely use lWr and do not involve reprocessing; therefore there is no such security risk involved. alt. 4 is based on the reprocessing of Pu so that it can be reused a couple of times, all of which involves the highest security burdens. In alt. 3 actinides (including Pu) are reprocessed and transmuted in Frs; however the security concerns are lower than with alt. 4. Resource durability Consuming uranium (as a burden) In the two first alternatives we use the highest amount of u as there is no recycling (reusing) involved. alt. 3 scores lower in terms of burdens. energy is produced when actinides are transmuted which therefore means that we use less u. alt. 4 uses the lowest amount of u as it is a Pu cycle. Energy production with uranium (as a benefit) In terms of the benefits of energy production, applying breeders (alt. 4) is the best option for this and the next generation, as that creates more fuel (Pu) that it consumes. alt. 3 has fewer benefits as it still involves the use of u and the transmuting of actinides in SF. The first two alternatives have the lowest benefit as they consume most u. as we are indicating here benefits, ‘high’ (benefit) becomes the most favorable option and it is colored green. Retrievable stored and disposed of spent fuel (as a benefit) This row involves the potential benefits of retrieving spent fuel (or waste) and reusing fissile materials as fresh fuel. In the two first alternatives, there is still u and Pu present that could potentially be separated and reused. The transmuter cycle (alt. 3) is based on the transmuting of actinides, but other actinides are produced during this process which are fissile and could also be used as fuel. Breeders use up all the Pu. as we are indicating here benefits, ‘high’ (benefit) is the most favorable option and it is colored green etc. Economic viability Safety measures costs until the end of the retrieval period There is no difference between the four alternatives to keep SF safe before the final disposal phase. even when we immediately put SF underground (alt. 2), certain costs need to be incurred for monitoring and keeping it retrievable. We assume that these costs will be equal for the four alternatives. Building reprocessing plants and fast reactors The two first alternatives solely use lWr and do not involve reprocessing; therefore there is no such risk involved. alt. 3 involves building reprocessing plants and fast reactors, all of which is very costly. alt. 4 is economically speaking the worst option as inevitably all lWrs will need to be replaced by Frs. appendix d: Intergenerational equity considerations of Fuel cycle choices 225
Technological applicability Geological disposal It is the same for all four alternatives. even though the design criteria for different disposal facilities differ the technological challenges remain the same. Applying reprocessing and fuel fabrication The two first alternatives solely use lWr and do not involve reprocessing; therefore there is no such risk involved. In the case of the last two the technological challenges are significant. even though breeder fuel has already been generated (unlike actinide fuel for transmuters as in alt. 3), there is still a technological challenge in alt. 4 to fabricate fuel from recycled breeder spent fuel; most breeder fuel has not so far been recycled. The technological challenges for alts. 3 & 4 are ranked equally, which means that they could have been denoted as ‘indifferent’. By ranking them as ‘high’ we aim to emphasize that these are challenges that need to be dealt with. Applying fast reactors The two first alternatives solely use lWr and do not involve reprocessing; therefore there is no such challenge. The technological challenges attached to applying fast reactors in the last two alternatives remain the same. as with the last impact, the technological challenges for alts. 3 & 4 are ranked equally, which means that we could have termed them ‘indifferent’. By ranking them as ‘high’ we aim to emphasize that these are serious challenges that need to be dealt with. ____________________ To emphasize the intergenerational considerations (as shown in the burden/benefit charts of the last section), the scorecard distinguishes between generation 1 and the subsequent generations. When choosing one alternative, two types of comparisons can be made: 1) the impacts for the first generations indicated by the brightly colored cells and 2) the impacts on future generations, indicated by the shaded cells. When two different alternatives score the best for different generations; the conflict arising from choosing the alternative should be regarded as a matter of intergenerational equity. The scorecard gives the decision maker a general appreciation of the tradeoffs between and within generations that need to be made. As numerous incommensurable value criteria are still involved, the scorecard is not helpful for choosing the final fuel cycle alternative based on numerical ranking. However it can help the decision maker to understand a certain choice by providing information about the implicit trade-offs that this choice involves. In other words, the scorecard clarifies at what societal expense a choice is made and what burdens it will incur upon different generations. Let us illustrate this by giving an example. Suppose that the decision maker decides to continue the current practice (Alt. 1). Based on the central values 17 of ‘public safety’ and ‘security’, this alternative scores relatively well; the short-term safety burdens of spent fuel storage and the long-term safety burdens of final disposal for Gen. 2 and beyond are then implicitly accepted as a consequence of this choice. As this alternative involves applying existing technology (with many fewer technological challenges) it scores well for ‘technological applicability’ when compared with other alternatives. For this and other reasons, the alternative brings about less economic concern. Alt. 1 furthermore scores badly in terms of ‘resource durability’, as the less abundant isotope of uranium ( 235 U) is used once only in a reactor as fuel; reasonably priced uranium for this fuel cycle is assumed for a century. 226 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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The Twice-Through Cycle The LCOE fo
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A proper representation of the chai
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