Download or read book Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the Waste Aspects of Advanced Nuclear Reactors written by National Academies Of Sciences Engineeri and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has deployed commercial nuclear power since the 1950s, and as of 2021, nuclear power accounts for approximately 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation. The current commercial nuclear fleet consists entirely of thermal-spectrum, light water reactors operating with low-enriched uranium dioxide fuel in a once-through fuel cycle. In recent years, the U.S. Congress, U.S. Department of Energy, and private sector have expressed considerable interest in developing and deploying advanced nuclear reactors to augment, and possibly replace, the U.S. operating fleet of reactors, nearly all of which will reach the end of their currently licensed operating lives by 2050. Much of this interest stems from the potential ability of advanced reactors and their associated fuel cycles - as claimed by their designers and developers - to provide a number of advantages, such as improvements in economic competitiveness, reductions in environmental impact via better natural resource utilization and/or lower waste generation, and enhancements in nuclear safety and proliferation resistance. At the request of Congress, this report explores merits and viability of different nuclear fuel cycles, including fuel cycles that may use reprocessing, for both existing and advanced reactor technologies; and waste management (including transportation, storage, and disposal options) for advanced reactors, and in particular, the potential impact of advanced reactors and their fuel cycles on waste generation and disposal.
Download or read book Nuclear Power written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The construction of nuclear power plants in the United States is stopping, as regulators, reactor manufacturers, and operators sort out a host of technical and institutional problems. This volume summarizes the status of nuclear power, analyzes the obstacles to resumption of construction of nuclear plants, and describes and evaluates the technological alternatives for safer, more economical reactors. Topics covered include: Institutional issues-including regulatory practices at the federal and state levels, the growing trends toward greater competition in the generation of electricity, and nuclear and nonnuclear generation options. Critical evaluation of advanced reactors-covering attributes such as cost, construction time, safety, development status, and fuel cycles. Finally, three alternative federal research and development programs are presented.
Download or read book Sustainable and Safe Nuclear Fission Energy written by Günter Kessler and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike existing books of nuclear reactor physics, nuclear engineering and nuclear chemical engineering this book covers a complete description and evaluation of nuclear fission power generation. It covers the whole nuclear fuel cycle, from the extraction of natural uranium from ore mines, uranium conversion and enrichment up to the fabrication of fuel elements for the cores of various types of fission reactors. This is followed by the description of the different fuel cycle options and the final storage in nuclear waste repositories. In addition the release of radioactivity under normal and possible accidental conditions is given for all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle and especially for the different fission reactor types.
Download or read book Nuclear Wastes written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1996-02-23 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear weapons production and power generation has caused public outcry and political consternation. Nuclear Wastes presents a critical review of some waste management and disposal alternatives to the current national policy of direct disposal of light water reactor spent fuel. The book offers clearcut conclusions for what the nation should do today and what solutions should be explored for tomorrow. The committee examines the currently used "once-through" fuel cycle versus different alternatives of separations and transmutation technology systems, by which hazardous radionuclides are converted to nuclides that are either stable or radioactive with short half-lives. The volume provides detailed findings and conclusions about the status and feasibility of plutonium extraction and more advanced separations technologies, as well as three principal transmutation concepts for commercial reactor spent fuel. The book discusses nuclear proliferation; the U.S. nuclear regulatory structure; issues of health, safety and transportation; the proposed sale of electrical energy as a means of paying for the transmutation system; and other key issues.
Download or read book Disposition of High Level Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-07-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focused attention by world leaders is needed to address the substantial challenges posed by disposal of spent nuclear fuel from reactors and high-level radioactive waste from processing such fuel. The biggest challenges in achieving safe and secure storage and permanent waste disposal are societal, although technical challenges remain. Disposition of radioactive wastes in a deep geological repository is a sound approach as long as it progresses through a stepwise decision-making process that takes advantage of technical advances, public participation, and international cooperation. Written for concerned citizens as well as policymakers, this book was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and waste management organizations in eight other countries.
Download or read book Advancing Technology for Nuclear Fuel Recycling written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science and Technology (2007) and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Radioactive Waste Management written by OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyses the effects of a range of advanced nuclear fuel cycle options on radioactive waste management policies, in relation to current technologies and options using tools such as repository performance analysis and cost studies.
Download or read book Reducing the Use of Highly Enriched Uranium in Civilian Research Reactors written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The continued presence of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civilian installations such as research reactors poses a threat to national and international security. Minimization, and ultimately elimination, of HEU in civilian research reactors worldwide has been a goal of U.S. policy and programs since 1978. Today, 74 civilian research reactors around the world, including 8 in the United States, use or are planning to use HEU fuel. Since the last National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report on this topic in 2009, 28 reactors have been either shut down or converted from HEU to low enriched uranium fuel. Despite this progress, the large number of remaining HEU-fueled reactors demonstrates that an HEU minimization program continues to be needed on a worldwide scale. Reducing the Use of Highly Enriched Uranium in Civilian Research Reactors assesses the status of and progress toward eliminating the worldwide use of HEU fuel in civilian research and test reactors.
Download or read book Advanced Nuclear Power and Fuel Cycle Technologies written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Although long a goal of nuclear power proponents, the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is also seen as a weapons proliferation risk, because plutonium extracted for new reactor fuel can also be used for nuclear weapons. Therefore, a primary goal of U.S. advanced fuel cycle programs, including GNEP, has been to develop recycling technologies that would not produce pure plutonium that could easily be diverted for weapons use. The "proliferation resistance" of these technologies is subject to considerable debate. Much of the current policy debate over advanced nuclear technologies is being conducted in the appropriations process. For FY2009, the House Appropriations Committee recommended no further funding for GNEP, although it increased funding for the Generation IV program. Typically, the Senate is more supportive of GNEP and reprocessing technologies. Recent industry studies conducted for the GNEP program conclude that advanced nuclear technologies will require many decades of government-supported development before they reach the current stage of LWRs. Key questions before Congress are whether the time has come to move beyond laboratory research on advanced nuclear technologies to the next, more expensive, development stages and what role, if any, the federal government should play.
Download or read book On Going Comparison of Advanced Fuel Cycle Options written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) program is addressing key issues associated with critical national needs. This paper compares the major options with these major "outcome" objectives - waste geological repository capacity and cost, energy security and sustainability, proliferation resistance, fuel cycle economics, and safety as well as "process" objectives associated with readiness to proceed and adaptability and robustness in the face of uncertainties. Working together, separation, transmutation, and fuel technologies provide complete energy systems that can improve waste management compared to the current "once-through/no separation" approach. Future work will further increase confidence in potential solutions, optimize solutions for the mixtures of objectives, and develop attractive development and deployment paths for selected options. This will allow the nation to address nearer-term issues such as avoiding the need for additional geological repositories while making nuclear energy a more sustainable energy option for the long-term. While the Generation IV Initiative is exploring multiple reactor options for future nuclear energy for both electricity generation and additional applications, the AFCI is assessing fuel cycles options for either a continuation or expansion of nuclear energy in the United States. This report compares strategies and technology options for managing the associated spent fuel. There are four major potential strategies, as follows: · The current U.S. strategy is once through: standard nuclear power plants, standard fuel burnup, direct geological disposal of spent fuel. Variants include higher burnup fuels in water-cooled power plants, once-through gas-cooled power plants, and separation (without recycling) of spent fuel to reduce the number and cost of geological waste packages. · The second strategy is thermal recycle, recycling some fuel components in thermal reactors. This strategy extends the useful life of the geologic repository, producing energy from the fissile transuranics in spent fuel while reducing plutonium. · The third strategy is thermal+fast recycle. The difference from the second strategy is that more components of spent fuel can be recycled to reduce both fissile and non-fissile transuranics, but at the cost of developing and deploying at least one fast reactor or accelerator driven system. A mix of thermal and fast reactors would implement this strategy. · The fourth strategy is pure fast recycle; fuel would not be recycled in thermal reactors, which would be phased out in favor of deploying fast spectrum power reactors.
Download or read book The Future of Nuclear Fuel Cycle written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this analysis we have presented a method that provides insight into future fuel cycle alternatives by clarifying the complexity of choosing an appropriate fuel cycle in the context of the distribution of burdens and benefits between generations. The current nuclear power deployment practices, together with three future fuel cycles were assessed."--Page 227.
Download or read book Evaluating Environmental Health and Safety Impacts from Two Nuclear Fuel Cycles written by Bethany L. Smith and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Thorium Fuel Cycle written by International Atomic Energy Agency and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a critical review of the thorium fuel cycle: potential benefits and challenges in the thorium fuel cycle, mainly based on the latest developments at the front end of the fuel cycle, applying thorium fuel cycle options, and at the back end of the thorium fuel cycle.
Download or read book Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic evaluation has been conducted of the potential for advanced nuclear fuel cycle strategies and options to address the issues ascribed to the use of nuclear power. Issues included nuclear waste management, proliferation risk, safety, security, economics and affordability, and sustainability. The two basic strategies, once-through and recycle, and the range of possibilities within each strategy, are considered for all aspects of the fuel cycle including options for nuclear material irradiation, separations if needed, and disposal. Options range from incremental changes to today's implementation to revolutionary concepts that would require the development of advanced nuclear technologies.
Download or read book Current Comparison of Advanced Fuel Cycle Options written by R. N. Hill and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nuclear fuel cycle includes mining, enrichment, nuclear power plants, recycling (if done), and residual waste disposition. The U.S. Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) has four program objectives to guide research on how best to glue these pieces together, as follows: waste management, proliferation resistance, energy recovery, and systematic management/economics/safety. We have developed a comprehensive set of metrics to evaluate fuel cycle options against the four program objectives. The current list of metrics is long-term heat, long-term dose, radiotoxicity and weapons usable material. This paper describes the current metrics and initial results from comparisons made using these metrics. The data presented were developed using a combination of "static" calculations and a system dynamic model, DYMOND. In many cases, we examine the same issue both dynamically and statically to determine the robustness of the observations. All analyses are for the U.S. reactor fleet. This work aims to clarify many of the issues being discussed within the AFCI program, including Inert Matrix Fuel (IMF) versus Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel, single-pass versus multi-pass recycling, thermal versus fast reactors, and the value of separating cesium and strontium. The results from a series ofdynamic simulations evaluating these options are included in this report. The model interface includes a few "control knobs" for flying or piloting the fuel cycle system into the future. The results from the simulations show that the future is dark (uncertain) and that the system is sluggish with slow timeresponse times to changes (i.e., what types of reactors are built, what types of fuels are used, and the capacity of separation and fabrication plants). Piloting responsibilities are distributed among utilities, government, and regulators, compounding the challenge of making the entire system work and respond to changing circumstances. We identify four approaches that would increase our chances of a sustainable fuel cycle system: (1) have a recycle strategy that could be implemented before the 2030-2050approximate period when current reactors retire so that replacement reactors fit into the strategy, (2) establish an option such as multi-pass blended-core IMF as a downward Pu control knob and accumulatewaste management benefits early, (3) establish fast reactors with flexible conversion ratio as a future control knob that slowly becomes available if/when fast reactors are added to the fleet, and (4) expand exploration of heterogeneous assemblies and cores, which appear to have advantages such as increased agility. Initial results suggest multi-pass full-core MOX appears to be a less effective way than multi-pass blended core IMF to manage the fuel cycle system because it requires higher TRU throughput while accruing waste management benefits at a slower rate. Single-pass recycle approaches for LWRs do not meet AFCI program objectives and could be considered a "dead end." We did not study the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR). Fast reactors appear to be effective options but a significant number of fast reactors must be deployed before the benefit of such strategies can be observed.
Download or read book Nuclear Energy written by Nicholas Tsoulfanidis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear Energy provides an authoritative reference on all aspects of the nuclear industry from fundamental reactor physics calculations to reactor design, nuclear fuel resources, nuclear fuel cycle, radiation detection and protection, and nuclear power economics. Featuring 19 peer-reviewed entries by recognized authorities in the field, this book provides comprehensive, streamlined coverage of fundamentals, current areas of research, and goals for the future. The chapters will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and energy industry experts.
Download or read book The Path to Sustainable Nuclear Energy Basic and Applied Research Opportunities for Advanced Fuel Cycles written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objective of this report is to identify new basic science that will be the foundation for advances in nuclear fuel-cycle technology in the near term, and for changing the nature of fuel cycles and of the nuclear energy industry in the long term. The goals are to enhance the development of nuclear energy, to maximize energy production in nuclear reactor parks, and to minimize radioactive wastes, other environmental impacts, and proliferation risks. The limitations of the once-through fuel cycle can be overcome by adopting a closed fuel cycle, in which the irradiated fuel is reprocessed and its components are separated into streams that are recycled into a reactor or disposed of in appropriate waste forms. The recycled fuel is irradiated in a reactor, where certain constituents are partially transmuted into heavier isotopes via neutron capture or into lighter isotopes via fission. Fast reactors are required to complete the transmutation of long-lived isotopes. Closed fuel cycles are encompassed by the Department of Energy?s Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), to which basic scientific research can contribute. Two nuclear reactor system architectures can meet the AFCI objectives: a?single-tier? system or a?dual-tier? system. Both begin with light water reactors and incorporate fast reactors. The?dual-tier? systems transmute some plutonium and neptunium in light water reactors and all remaining transuranic elements (TRUs) in a closed-cycle fast reactor. Basic science initiatives are needed in two broad areas:? Near-term impacts that can enhance the development of either?single-tier? or?dual-tier? AFCI systems, primarily within the next 20 years, through basic research. Examples: Dissolution of spent fuel, separations of elements for TRU recycling and transmutation Design, synthesis, and testing of inert matrix nuclear fuels and non-oxide fuels Invention and development of accurate on-line monitoring systems for chemical and nuclear species in the nuclear fuel cycle Development of advanced tools for designing reactors with reduced margins and lower costs? Long-term nuclear reactor development requires basic science breakthroughs: Understanding of materials behavior under extreme environmental conditions Creation of new, efficient, environmentally benign chemical separations methods Modeling and simulation to improve nuclear reaction cross-section data, design new materials and separation system, and propagate uncertainties within the fuel cycle Improvement of proliferation resistance by strengthening safeguards technologies and decreasing the attractiveness of nuclear materials A series of translational tools is proposed to advance the AFCI objectives and to bring the basic science concepts and processes promptly into the technological sphere. These tools have the potential to revolutionize the approach to nuclear engineering R & D by replacing lengthy experimental campaigns with a rigorous approach based on modeling, key fundamental experiments, and advanced simulations.
