Impact of alternative nuclear fuel cycle options on infrastructure and fuel requirements, actinide and waste inventories, and economics

The nuclear fuel once-through cycle (OTC) scheme currently practiced in the U.S. leads to accumulation of uranium, transuranic (TRU) and fission product inventories in the spent nuclear fuel. Various separation and recycling options can be envisioned in order to reduce these inventories while extracting additional energy and sending the ultimate waste to a repository. Choosing one of these options has direct implications for the infrastructure requirements, natural uranium consumption, actinide inventories in the system, waste repository needs and costs. In order to account for the complexity of the nuclear enterprise, a fuel cycle simulation code has been developed using system dynamics (CAFCA). An economic module was added using spreadsheets. Four main advanced fuel cycle schemes are assessed here within the context of the US market: 1) the twice-through cycle scheme (TTC): single-pass plutonium recycling in thermal spectrum LWRs using Mixed OXide (MOX) fuel; 2) Multi-recycling of TRU in sodium-cooled fast spectrum burner cores, characterized by a fissile conversion ratio lower than 1 (FBu); 3) Multi-recycling of TRU in sodium-cooled fast breeders with a conversion ratio of 1.23 (FBr); and 4) A two-tier scenario: a TTC scheme is practiced as a transition scheme to fast reactors. The base case scenario assumes annual nuclear energy demand growth rate of 2.5% from 2020 on. The technologies for plutonium separation as well as MOX fuel fabrication are assumed to be available in 2025 while the first commercial fast reactors, as well as the possibility to recycle their spent fuel, are assumed to be available in 2040.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Guérin, Laurent, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mujid S. Kazimi.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• Technology and Policy Program.
• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57689

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/57689