Nuclear Fuel Cycle European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

EN S REG Nuclear fuel cycle European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group Uranium, as it is mined from the earth's crust, is not directly useable The steps before electricity production - mining and milling, conver- for electricity generation in nuclear power plant. A number of proces- sion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication- are known as the 'front end' of sing steps must be carried out to fabricate uranium fuel that can be the cycle. After being used to produce electricity, the uranium beco- used eciently to generate electricity. The various activities associa- mes 'spent fuel' and the 'back end' of the cycle begins. This may in- ted with the production of electricity from nuclear reactions are refer- clude: storage, reprocessing, recycling, and waste disposal. If spent red to collectively as the nuclear fuel cycle. The nuclear fuel cycle fuel is not reprocessed, the fuel cycle is referred to as an open fuel starts with the mining of uranium and ends with the disposal of nu- cycle (or a once-through fuel cycle). If the spent fuel is reprocessed, it clear waste. is referred to as a closed fuel cycle. 1 More than half of the uranium 2 cames from Canada, Kazachstan In the fuel fabrication and Australia. Before the ura- plant the enriched uranium ore is transported, it is nium is processed fuel concentrated about 200 to 300 elements. Fuel elements times into uranium oxide or 106 ton UF6 can also be made with ‘yellow cake’. depleted uranium and plutonium from used Not all of the uranium can be (or ’ spent’ ) fuel. used as fuel. In an enrichment plant, the usable uranium 2412 ton ton UF6 U (U-235) is further concentrated from 0,7% up to some 4 - 5 %. What remains (the by-product) U-Enrichment Fuel fabrication is called depleted uranium, since it contains less U-235 than 73 ton U 13,5 ton natural uranium. U- Fuel 3 13,5 ton is sucient U-Mines 11,5 ton U 115 kg Pu fuel for one year of electricty of a 500 MW nuclear power Nuclear power plant plant (PWR). 1 m3 high level radioactive waste Reprocessing 4 5 Some counries have a so- 13,5 ton U-fuel Other countries reprocess their called open fuel cycle. spent fuel. Reprocessing Waste storage Spent fuel is not reprocessed, means that the resuable sub- but directly send to interim stances (uranium and pluto- storage awaiting final disposal nium) are recovered from the in a deep geological repository. spent fuel to be used for the fabrication of new fuel. What remains is a small volume of high level radioactive waste. This is, similar to spent fuel, Eindberging stored before it is finally dispo- sed of in a deep geological res- pository. Source: World Nuclear Association 2006.

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Fast-Spectrum Reactors Technology Assessment
Clean Power Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 Chapter 4: Advancing Clean Electric Power Technologies Technology Assessments Advanced Plant Technologies Biopower Clean Power Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Value- Added Options Carbon Dioxide Capture for Natural Gas and Industrial Applications Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies Carbon Dioxide Storage Technologies Crosscutting Technologies in Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Fast-spectrum Reactors Geothermal Power High Temperature Reactors Hybrid Nuclear-Renewable Energy Systems Hydropower Light Water Reactors Marine and Hydrokinetic Power Nuclear Fuel Cycles Solar Power Stationary Fuel Cells U.S. DEPARTMENT OF Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Brayton Cycle ENERGY Wind Power Clean Power Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 Fast-spectrum Reactors Chapter 4: Technology Assessments Background and Current Status From the initial conception of nuclear energy, it was recognized that full realization of the energy content of uranium would require the development of fast reactors with associated nuclear fuel cycles.1 Thus, fast reactor technology was a key focus in early nuclear programs in the United States and abroad, with the first usable nuclear electricity generated by a fast reactor—Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I)—in 1951. Test and/or demonstration reactors were built and operated in the United States, France, Japan, United Kingdom, Russia, India, Germany, and China—totaling about 20 reactors with 400 operating years to date. These previous reactors and current projects are summarized in Table 4.H.1.2 Currently operating test reactors include BOR-60 (Russia), Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) (India), and China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) (China). The Russian BN-600 demonstration reactor has been operating as a power reactor since 1980.
[Show full text]
Advanced Nuclear Power and Fuel Cycle Technologies: Outlook and Policy Options
Order Code RL34579 Advanced Nuclear Power and Fuel Cycle Technologies: Outlook and Policy Options July 11, 2008 Mark Holt Specialist in Energy Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division Advanced Nuclear Power and Fuel Cycle Technologies: Outlook and Policy Options Summary Current U.S. nuclear energy policy focuses on the near-term construction of improved versions of existing nuclear power plants. All of today’s U.S. nuclear plants are light water reactors (LWRs), which are cooled by ordinary water. Under current policy, the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from LWRs is to be permanently disposed of in a deep underground repository. The Bush Administration is also promoting an aggressive U.S. effort to move beyond LWR technology into advanced reactors and fuel cycles. Specifically, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), under the Department of Energy (DOE) is developing advanced reprocessing (or recycling) technologies to extract plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear fuel, as well as an advanced reactor that could fully destroy long-lived radioactive isotopes. DOE’s Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative is developing other advanced reactor technologies that could be safer than LWRs and produce high-temperature heat to make hydrogen. DOE’s advanced nuclear technology programs date back to the early years of the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1940s and 1950s. In particular, it was widely believed that breeder reactors — designed to produce maximum amounts of plutonium from natural uranium — would be necessary for providing sufficient fuel for a large commercial nuclear power industry. Early research was also conducted on a wide variety of other power reactor concepts, some of which are still under active consideration.
[Show full text]
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle
THE COLLECTION > From the uranium mine> toI wNTasRtOeD dUisCpToIsOaN l 1 > The atom 2 > Radioactivity 3 > Radiation and man 4 > Energy 5 > Nuclear energy: fusion and fission 6 > How a nuclear reactor works 7 > The nuclear fuel cycle 7 > The nuclear fuel cycle FROM RESEARCH 8 > Microelectronics 9 > The laser: a concentrate of light TO INDUSTRY 10 > Medical imaging 11 > Nuclear astrophysics 12 > Hydrogen 7 >>TThhee nnuucclleeaarr ffuueell ccyyccllee UPSTREAM THE REACTOR: PREPARING THE FUEL IN THE REACTOR: FUEL CONSUMPTION DOWNSTREAM THE REACTOR: REPROCESSING NUCLEAR WASTE NUCLEAR WASTE © Commissariat à l’’Énergie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, 2005 Communication Division Bâtiment Siège - 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex www.cea.fr ISSN 1637-5408. From the uranium mine to waste disposal 7 > The nuclear fuel cycle From the uranium mine to waste disposal 7 > The nuclear fuel cycle 2 > CONTENTS > INTRODUCTION 3 Uranium ore is extracted from open-pit mines – such as the McClear mines in Canada seen here – or underground workings. a m e g o C © “The nuclear fuel cycle includes an erray UPSTREAM THE REACTOR: of industrial operations, from uranium PREPARING THE FUEL 4 e mining to the disposal of radioactive l Extracting uranium from the ore 5 waste.” c Concentrating and refining uranium 6 y Enriching uranium 6 c Enrichment methods 8 l introduction uel is a material that can be burnt to pro - IN THE REACTOR: FUEL CONSUMPTION 9 Fvide heat. The most familiar fuels are wood, e Preparing fuel assemblies 10 coal, natural gas and oil. By analogy, the ura - e g a nium used in nuclear power plants is called Per unit or mass (e.g.
[Show full text]
Simulations of the Chinese Nuclear Fuel Cycle Scenario Using a New Code
Simulations of the Chinese Nuclear Fuel Cycle Scenario Using a New Code YOUPENG ZHANG Master of Science Diploma Work Department of Reactor Physics Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, 2007 TRITA-FYS 2007:42 Abstract One of the most important affairs in the nuclear industry is the fuel cycle situation prediction. It affects the energy company’s profit, environment and even the safety of reactor operation. For these reasons, a series of computer codes have been generated to simulate the fuel cycle scenario including NFCSim, ORION and so on. At the Department of Reactor Physics, a new fuel cycle simulation code is under development and this code will be used in the present thesis. In order to simulate the nuclides transmutation chains, MCNP was first used to calculate the neutron spectrum and cross section data for the reactor cores, using JEF 3.0 and EAF 99 data libraries. The main task of this project is to simulate the present and future status of all the facilities in Chinese reactor park. Three consecutive scenarios (present, near-term and long-term) are defined for this comparison, simulation time scale is set to be 208 years (1992~2200) and four groups of nuclides (major actinides, minor actinides, major fission products and safety related nuclides) are defined and presented. Power balance scenario, plutonium self-sustained scenario and CIAE proposals are discussed individually as choices of reactor parks’ future development. The result is that at least 70 years (cooling storage time is not included) are needed to transmute the minor actinides inventory after the large-scale FBR (Fast Breeder Reactor) technology is mature enough for large scale commissioning in plutonium-sustained scenario.
[Show full text]
Nuclear Fuel Cycles Technology Assessment
Clean Power Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 Chapter 4: Advancing Clean Electric Power Technologies Technology Assessments Advanced Plant Technologies Biopower Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Clean Power Value-Added Options Carbon Dioxide Capture for Natural Gas and Industrial Applications Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies Carbon Dioxide Storage Technologies Crosscutting Technologies in Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Fast-spectrum Reactors Geothermal Power High Temperature Reactors Hybrid Nuclear-Renewable Energy Systems Hydropower Light Water Reactors Marine and Hydrokinetic Power Nuclear Fuel Cycles Solar Power Stationary Fuel Cells Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Brayton Cycle U.S. DEPARTMENT OF Wind Power ENERGY Clean Power Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 Nuclear Fuel Cycles Chapter 4: Technology Assessments Introduction and Background The Nuclear Fuel Cycle (NFC) is defined as the total set of operations required to produce fission energy and manage the associated nuclear materials. It can have different attributes, including the extension of natural resources, or the minimization of waste disposal requirements. The NFC, as depicted in Figure 4.O.1, is comprised of a set of operations that include the extraction of uranium (U) resources from the earth (and possibly from seawater), uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication, use of the fuel in reactors, interim storage of used nuclear fuel, the optional recycle of the used fuel, and the final disposition of used fuel and waste forms from the recycling processes. Thorium (Th) fuel cycles have been proposed also, but have not been commercially implemented). Figure 4.O.1 Schematic of the uranium based Nuclear Fuel Cycle 1 Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 Clean Power TA 4.O: Nuclear Fuel Cycles The nuclear fuel cycle is often grouped into three classical components (front-end, reactor, and back-end): Front End: The focus of the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle is to deliver fabricated fuel to the reactor.
[Show full text]
Plutonium and China's Future Nuclear Fuel Cycle Jasper Pandza, International Institute for Strategic Studies [email protected]
1 Plutonium and China’s Future Nuclear Fuel Cycle Jasper Pandza, International Institute for Strategic Studies [email protected] 13th PIIC Beijing Seminar on International Security: Building a World of Sustainable Peace and Stability Beijing, China October 31 - 3 November, 2012 Introduction Following the March 2011 Fukushima accident, the State Council, China’s highest policy- making body, suspended approvals for new nuclear plants and initiated a range of other measures aimed at improving the country’s nuclear safety provisions. The suspension of new construction approvals is expected to be lifted within the coming months,1 after being in place for longer than initially expected. The State Council’s actions demonstrated a new resolve among China’s leadership to give nuclear safety considerations greater priority compared to the economic benefits of nuclear power. The Fukushima accident apparently gave policy makers a reason to fear that a similar accident in China would put the government-run nuclear programme at serious risk. Throughout the past year, China has not moved away from its long-standing commitment to a closed, plutonium-based nuclear fuel cycle with spent fuel reprocessing and fast-neutron reactors. However, China’s response to Fukushima appears to have delayed progress in that direction. The construction of conventional light water reactors (LWR) will soon gather greater pace, but further delays in China’s fuel-cycle plans can be expected, as resources may need to be diverted towards improving the safety of current and future LWRs and to accelerating the shift from generation II to generation III LWR technology. This cautious approach should be welcomed, because it provides China with further opportunity to reconsider the economic rationale and the security risks associated with reprocessing and fast-reactor technologies.
[Show full text]
Revisiting the Thorium-Uranium Nuclear Fuel Cycle
s e r u t Revisiting the a e f thorium-uranium nuclear fuel cycle [DOI: 10.1051/EPN:2007007 ] Sylvain David a, Elisabeth Huffer b and Hervé Nifenecker b, Energy Panel of the French Physics Society a Institut de Physique Nucléaire d’Orsay • France b Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie (IN2P3, Grenoble) • France thorium-uranium nuclear fuel cycle, in which the main amounts of uranium 233 available remained tiny, insufficient to HE fissile nucleus is uranium 233 and fuel regeneration is allow the rapid development of a thorium-uranium concept. ensured through neutron capture on thorium 232 offers many It appears today that the growth rate of nuclear power Tpotential advantages as compared to the better known urani - worldwide does not require the fast development of breeder re - um-plutonium fuel cycle. These include, in particular, reduced actor concepts. It is then possible, as we show in this paper, to high activity long lived waste production and less likelihood of constitute a stockpile of uranium 233 that could allow the nuclear proliferation. A brief description of the nuclear reactors development of a fleet of thorium-uranium reactors. We show being considered for this fuel cycle is given. We show also that a also that such a concept has many major advantages, in partic - strategy can be put together to constitute the initial uranium ular concerning the disposal of radioactive waste and the risks 233 supply for such reactors, using today’s pressurized water of nuclear proliferation. We give a brief description of the types reactors and a thorium and plutonium mixed oxide fuel.
[Show full text]
Curium in Space
ROBIN JOHANSSON Curium in Space KTH Royal Institute of Technology Master Thesis 2013-05-05 Abstract New technology has shown the possibility to use a miniature satellite in conjunction with an electric driven engine to make a spiral trajectory into space from a low earth orbit. This report has done an investigation of the new technique to produce power sources replacing solar panels which cannot be used in missions out in deep space. It is in essence an alternative use of curium among the many proposals on how to handle the intermediate stored used nuclear fuel or once through nuclear fuel as some people prefer to call it. The idea of sending radioactive used nuclear fuel into outer space has been considered before. There was a proposal, for example, to load a space shuttle with radioactive material. This could have serious consequences to the nearby population in the event of a major malfunction to the shuttle. The improvement to this old idea is to use a small satellite with only a fraction of the spent fuel. With this method and other technological advances, it is possible to further reduce the risk of contamination in the event of a crash. This report has looked into the nuclear energy production of Sweden and the current production of transuranium elements (Pu, Np, Am and Cm). The report has also focused on the curium (Cm) part of the transuranium elements, which is the most difficult to recycle in a fast neutron spectra. The physical property of curium reduces many of the safety parameters in the reactor as it is easily transmutated into californium, which is a high neutron emitter.
[Show full text]
Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status
Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: 8 History and Status Thomas B. Cochran, Harold A. Feiveson, Walt Patterson, Gennadi Pshakin, M.V. Ramana, Mycle Schneider, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Frank von Hippel A research report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials February 2010 Research Report 8 International Panel on Fissile Materials Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status Thomas B. Cochran, Harold A. Feiveson, Walt Patterson, Gennadi Pshakin, M.V. Ramana, Mycle Schneider, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Frank von Hippel www.fissilematerials.org February 2010 © 2010 International Panel on Fissile Materials ISBN 978-0-9819275-6-5 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. To view a copy of this license, visit www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0 Table of Contents About the IPFM i 1 Overview: The Rise and Fall of Plutonium Breeder Reactors Frank von Hippel 1 2 Fast Breeder Reactors in France Mycle Schneider 17 3 India and Fast Breeder Reactors M. V. Ramana 37 4 Japan’s Plutonium Breeder Reactor and its Fuel Cycle Tatsujiro Suzuki 53 5 The USSR-Russia Fast-Neutron Reactor Program Gennadi Pshakin 63 6 Fast Breeder Reactors in the United Kingdom Walt Patterson 73 7 Fast Reactor Development in the United States Thomas B. Cochran, Harold A. Feiveson, and Frank von Hippel 89 Contributors 113 Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status Figures Overview: The Rise and Fall of Plutonium Breeder Reactors Figure 1.1 Plutonium breeding. 3 Figure 1.2 History of the price of uranium. 6 Figure 1.3 Funding in OECD countries. 7 Figure 1.4 Dose rate of separated transuranics.
[Show full text]
2009-07 New Nuclear Reactors
"New" Nuclear Reactors, Same Old Story By Amory B. Lovins Originally published in Solutions Journal, Spring 2009 The dominant type of new nuclear power plant, light-water reactors (LWRs), proved unfinanceable in the robust 2005–08 capital market, despite new U.S. subsidies approaching or exceeding their total construction cost. New LWRs are now so costly and slow that they save 2–20× less carbon, 20–40× slower, than micropower and efficient end-use.1 As this becomes evident, other kinds of reactors are being proposed instead—novel designs claimed to solve LWRsʼ problems of economics, proliferation, and waste.2 Even climate-protection pioneer Jim Hansen says these “Gen IV” reactors merit rapid R&D.3 But on closer examination, the two kinds most often promoted— Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) and thorium reactors4—reveal no economic, environmental, or security rationale, and the thesis is unsound for any nuclear reactor. Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) The IFR—a pool-type, liquid-sodium-cooled fast-neutron5 reactor plus an ambitious new nuclear fuel cycle—was abandoned in 1994,6 and General Electricʼs S-PRISM design in ~2003, due to both proliferation concerns and dismal economics. Federal funding for fast breeder reactors7 halted in 1983, but in the past few years, enthusiasts got renewed Bush Administration support by portraying IFRs as a solution to proliferation and nuclear waste. Itʼs neither. Fast reactors were first offered as a way to make more plutonium to augment and ultimately replace scarce uranium. Now that uranium and enrichment are known to get cheaper while reprocessing, cleanup, and nonproliferation get costlier—destroying the economic rationale— IFRs have been rebranded as a way to destroy the plutonium (and similar transuranic elements) in long-lived radioactive waste.
[Show full text]
Recycling of Uranium-236.<Br>J.R. Askew
NEACRP-A- SBS Recycle of Uranium-236 J R Askew The Chairman of the Working Party on Nuclear Fuel Cycle Requirements has sought the advice of this Committee on the problems associated with the possible future recycle of U236 in thermal reactors. Some of these, for example whether the used uranium would be recycled through the enrichment process or have highly enriched material added, will be for the Working Party to decide before calculations are performed. There remained the question of the methods and data which should be used in such studies, and whether these would lead to differences of view between NEA member countries. It appeared to me that a simple benchmark calculational exercise might best provide the answer to this auestion and I agreed- to raise the matter before the NEACRP. As only the calculational capabilities, and not the actual cycle details, are at issue it might be adequate to use a greatly simplified problem on the following lines: 1. Specify a typical PWR pin-cell or assembly designed for approximately 35,000 MWdIte. Possibly include a fixed buckling. 2. Burnup for designed life and determine U236 and other actinide content at 35,000 MWdIte. Determine lifetime average multiplication. 3. Run a second case with specified U236lU235 ratio. Determine enrichment needed to give same lifetime average multiplication as in the base case, and discharge isotopics. This should suffice to identify any significant differences of view on the behaviour of U236 in the fuel cycle. As the Working Party next meets in April 1984it would be desirable to have the preliminary review of results before that date.
[Show full text]
Plutonium Recycling in Lwrs
Plutonium recycling in LWRs Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen independent consultant member of the Nuclear Consulting Group September 2019 [email protected] Note In this document the references are coded by Q-numbers (e.g. Q6). Each reference has a unique number in this coding system, which is consistently used throughout all publications by the author. In the list at the back of the document the references are sorted by Q-number. The resulting sequence is not necessarily the same order in which the references appear in the text. m15MOXlwr20190922 1 MOX fuel in LWRs The plutonium recovered from spent fuel, usually labeled reactor-grade plutonium Purg could be used to fabricate MOX (Mixed OXide) fuel elements consisting of natural or depleted uranium oxide and plutonium oxide instead of a higher content of uranium-235, to be used in light-water reactors (LWRs). At present about 30 nuclear power plants, mostly in Europe, are using MOX fuel elements, not more than about 30% of the core. Special reactor designs are required to replace all enriched uranium fuel in the core fully by MOX fuel. Reprocessing of commercial nuclear fuel to make MOX is done in the United Kingdom and France, and to a lesser extent in Russia, India and Japan [wiki-mox 2017] Q741. Plutonium from reprocessed fuel is usually fabricated into MOX as soon as possible to avoid problems with the decay of short-lived isotopes, in particular Pu-241 that decays (half-life 14.1 years) to americium-241, a strong gamma emitter. Within 5 years typical reactor-grade plutonium would contain too much Am-241 to safely handle [WNA-mox 2016] Q246.
[Show full text]