China needing a cautious approach to nuclear power strategy

China is leading the recent revival of nuclear energy programs. The Chinese government plans to increase nuclear generating capacity to 40 GWe by 2020, while the installed capacity is 8.6 GWe in 2007. In view of the enthusiasm shown for nuclear electricity throughout the country, the actual scale of Chinese nuclear power development is expected to reach 70 GWe by 2020. However, the low cost proven uranium reverses (cost category to <130 US $/kg) in China only meet half demand of 40 GWe capacity in 2020. And overlying China's increased demand is continued political sensitivity about the uranium trade. Meanwhile, the capacity of China's spent fuel reprocessing cannot keep up with the increasing spent fuel. And the legal administrative system of radioactive waste and spent fuel management is outdated. Hence it is proposed in this paper that the accelerated development of nuclear power industry is not good, and the over-accelerated development may be harmful, without appropriately considering the uranium resources and spent fuel management.     

Future regional nuclear fuel cycle cooperation in East Asia: Energy security costs and benefits

Economic growth in East Asia has rapidly increased regional energy, and especially, electricity needs. Many of the countries of East Asia have sought or are seeking to diversify their energy sources and bolster their energy supply and/or environmental security by developing nuclear power. Rapid development of nuclear power in East Asia brings with it concerns regarding nuclear weapons proliferation associated with uranium enrichment and spent nuclear fuel management. This article summarizes the development and analysis of four different scenarios of nuclear fuel cycle management in East Asia, including a scenario where each major nuclear power user develops uranium enrichment and reprocessing of spent fuel individually, scenarios featuring cooperation in the full fuel cycle, and a scenario where reprocessing is avoided in favor of dry cask storage of spent fuel. The material inputs and outputs and costs of key fuel cycle elements under each scenario are summarized.     

Japan's spent fuel and plutonium management challenge

Japan's commitment to plutonium recycling has been explicitly stated in its long-term program since 1956. Despite the clear cost disadvantage compared with direct disposal or storage of spent fuel, the Rokkasho reprocessing plant started active testing in 2006. Japan's cumulative consumption of plutonium has been only 5 tons to date and its future consumption rate is still uncertain. But once the Rokkasho reprocessing plant starts its full operation, Japan will separate about 8 tons of plutonium annually. Our analysis shows that, with optimum use of available at-reactor and away-from-reactor storage capacity, there would be no need for reprocessing until the mid-2020s. With an additional 30,000 tons of away-from-reactor (AFR) spent-fuel storage capacity reprocessing could be avoided until 2050. Deferring operation of the Rokkasho plant, at least until the plutonium stockpile had been worked down to the minimum required level, would also minimize international concern about Japan's plutonium stockpile. The authors are happy to acknowledge Frank von Hippel, Harold Feiveson, Jungming Kang, Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana, and other IPFM members, as well as the generous grant from the MacArthur Foundation for helping make this research possible.     

Accumulation of nuclear spent fuel from UK power stations

In the absence of a reprocessing industry able to deal with large quantities of irradiated nuclear fuel, it is expected that the bulk of the oxide spent fuel discharged from nuclear reactors will be stored for some decades. In this report the rate of accumulation of spent fuel in the UK and the proportion of its plutonium content is assessed. It is shown that the plutonium content of the metal spent fuel arising from Magnox stations alone should be sufficient to fuel a modest fast breeder programme of 1–2 GW_e well into the next century. As there is an established reprocessing industry for metal fuel, it is argued that reprocessing of oxide fuel need not take place until uncertainties over its cost and necessity are resolved.     

Performance modeling and analysis of spent nuclear fuel recycling

The rapid expansion of nuclear energy in China has intensified concerns regarding spent fuel management. However, the consequences of failure or delay in developing approaches to managing spent fuel in China have not yet been explicitly analyzed. Thus, a dynamic analysis of transitions in nuclear fuel cycles in China to 2050 was conducted. This multi‐disciplinary study compares the environmental, security, and economic consequences of choices among ongoing technology development options for spent fuel management. Four transition scenarios were identified: the direct disposal of PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) spent fuel, the recycling of PWR spent fuel through PWR‐MOX (Mixed Oxides), the PWR‐MOX followed by fast reactors, and the recycling of PWR spent fuel using fast reactors. Direct disposal would have the lowest cost of electricity generation under the current market conditions, while the reprocessing and recycling of PWR spent fuel would benefit the Chinese nuclear power program by reducing the generation of high level waste (67–82%), saving natural U resources (9–17%), and reducing Pu management risk (24–58%). Moreover, a fast reactor system would provide better performance than one‐time recycling through PWR‐MOX. The latter also poses high risks in managing the build‐up of separated Pu. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Proposal of utilization of nuclear spent fuels for gamma cells

Large amounts of nuclear spent fuel are generated in nuclear power plants every year and stored in fuel storage facilities for 20–30 years until reprocessing. However, the spent fuel still has residual energies, such as high-temperature heat energy and high-intensity gamma radioactivity. We have examined the characteristics of solar cells exposed to gamma radiation for the development of gamma cells utilizing nuclear spent fuel. We used a highly intense ⁶⁰Co gamma source as a suitable substitute for spent fuel due to safety concerns and convenience. Two representative types of solar cells, amorphous and crystalline cells, were examined and the current and voltage generated by each type were measured. In general, solar cells are largely insensitive to gamma radiation because the radiation passes through solar cells without imparting all of its energy. In order to enhance the sensitivity to radiation, the solar cells were coupled to CsI(Tl), NaI(Tl) and plastic scintillators. We confirmed the following characteristics: (1) amorphous solar cells coupled to a CsI(Tl) scintillator are able to generate a large amount of electric power, compared to crystal-type solar cells, (2) amorphous cells exhibit a good linear response to high-intensity gamma radiation and generate electric power almost in proportion to the volume of the scintillator used, (3) the generated electric power is independent of the incident angle of the gamma rays and the amount of power is determined only by the volume of the scintillator used. The electric power generated by a single solar cell is very small, but a large amount of electric power can be obtained by arranging many solar cells in stacks and combining their induced current or voltage and by operating the cells all day, as they are not affected by weather conditions. We concluded that gamma cells utilizing the gamma radiation of nuclear spent fuel can be expected to be useful for electric power generation in the near future.     

The economics of nuclear fuel reprocessing : A case study of the windscale THORP plant

The comparative economics of the thermal oxide reprocessing plant are examined within the context of recent public pronouncements of nuclear power development in the UK to the year 2000, using ‘best estimates’ of available costings. Two principal scenarios for utilizing the fuel recovered from reprocessing are considered; recycle in thermal reactors and storage for use as fuel for fast reactor development and commercialization. Although the financial viability of reprocessing is proven in each case, it is argued that this conclusion can easily be invalidated given the extensive degree of inconsistency in the published cost estimates of many ‘back end’ fuel cycle operations.     

PWR-FBR with closed fuel cycle for a sustainable nuclear energy supply in China

From the thermal reactor to the fast reactor and then to the fusion reactor; this is the three-step strategy that has been decided for a sustainable nuclear energy supply in China. As the main thermal reactor type, the commercialized development phase of the pressurized water reactor (PWR) has been stepped up. The development of the fast reactor (FBR) is still in the early stage, marked by China experimental fast reactor (CEFR), which is currently under construction. According to the strategy study on the fast reactor development in China, its engineering development will be divided into three steps: the CEFR with a power of 65 MWt/20 MWe; the China prototype fast reactor (CPFR) with a power of 1 500 MWt/600 MWe; and the China demonstration fast reactor (CDFR) with a power of 2 500–3 750 MWt/1 000–1 500 MWe. With regards to the fuel cycle, a 100 t/a PWR spent fuel reprocessing pilot plant and a 500 kg/ a MOX fabrication plant are under construction. A project involving the construction of an industrial reprocessing plant and an MOX fabrication plant are also under application phase.     

核电站乏燃料中Np-237和Am-243的含量预测与分析

应用ORIGEN2.1程序对1座功率为1000MW核电机组运行3年后乏燃料次锕系核素(MA)中的NP-237和Am-243的累计量做了预测;并分析核电运行3年后,该2种核素经过短期和长期衰变后的含量变化趋势。为乏燃料的后处理提供有价值的参考。     

The problem of used nuclear fuel: lessons for interim solutions from a comparative cost analysis

An acceptable long-term solution for used (spent) fuel from nuclear power reactors has evaded all countries engaged in the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. Furthermore, many countries are trying to develop interim storage solutions that address the shortage of storage in the spent fuel cooling pools at reactors. The United States has a particularly acute problem due to its adherence to an open fuel cycle and its large number of reactors. Two main options are available to address the spent fuel problem: dry storage on-site at reactors and centralized storage at a facility away from reactors. Key to deciding which option makes better policy sense is the comparative economics of the two options. This paper provides one of the few comprehensive comparisons of costs for the two alternatives and discusses implications for other schemes and possible alternative solutions to the spent fuel problem for the United States.     

Cost analysis of the US spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility

The US Department of Energy is actively seeking ways in which to delay or obviate the need for additional nuclear waste repositories beyond Yucca Mountain. All of the realistic approaches require the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. However, the US currently lacks the infrastructure to do this and the costs of building and operating the required facilities are poorly established. Recent studies have also suggested that there is a financial advantage to delaying the deployment of such facilities. We consider a system of government owned reprocessing plants, each with a 40 year service life, that would reprocess spent nuclear fuel generated between 2010 and 2100. Using published data for the component costs, and a social discount rate appropriate for intergenerational analyses, we establish the unit cost for reprocessing and show that it increases slightly if deployment of infrastructure is delayed by a decade. The analysis indicates that achieving higher spent fuel discharge burnup is the most important pathway to reducing the overall cost of reprocessing. The analysis also suggests that a nuclear power production fee would be a way for the US government to recover the costs in a manner that is relatively insensitive to discount and nuclear power growth rates.     

A study of the probabilistic risk assessment to the dry storage system of spent nuclear fuel

Due to the large power supply in the energy market since 1960s, the nuclear power planets have been consistently constructed throughout the world in order to maintain and supply sufficient fundamental power generation. Up to now, most of the planets have been operated to a point where the spent fuel pool has reached its design capacity volume. To prevent the plant from shutdown due to the spent fuel pool exceeding the design capacity, the dry cask storage can provides a solution for both the spent fuel pool capacity and the mid-term storage method for the spent fuel bundles at nuclear power planet.     

The achievement,significance and future prospect of China's renewable energy initiative

China's high-speed economic growth and ambitious urbanization depend heavily on the massive consumption of fossil fuel. However, the over-dependence on the depleting fossil fuels causes severe environmental problems, making China the largest energy consumer and the biggest CO₂ emitter in the world. Faced with significant challenges in terms of managing its environment and moving forward with the concept of sustainable economic development, the Chinese government plans to move away from fossil fuels and rely on renewables such as hydropower, wind power, solar power, biomass power and nuclear power. In this paper, the current status of China's renewable energy deployment and the ongoing development projects are summarized and discussed. Most recent developments of major renewable energy sources are clearly reviewed. Additionally, the renewable energy development policies including laws and regulations, economic encouragement, technical research and development are also summarized. This study showcases China's achievements in exploiting its abundant domestic renewable energy sources to meet the future energy demand and reducing carbon emissions. To move toward a low carbon society, technological progress and policy improvements are needed for improving grid access (wind), securing nuclear fuel supplies and managing safety protocols (nuclear), integrating supply chains to achieve indigenous manufacture of technologies across supply chains (solar). Beyond that, a preliminary prediction of the development of China's future renewable energy developments, and proposes targeted countermeasures and suggestions are proposed. The proposal involves developing smart-grid system, investing on renewable energy research, improving the feed-in tariff system and clarifying the subsidy system.     

Japan''s nuclear energy policy: from firm commitment to difficult dilemma addressing growing stocks of plutonium, program delays, domestic opposition and international pressure

Since 1956, Japan has been on a path to reduce its dependence on foreign energy sources through the development of nuclear power. This paper examines the origins of this commitment, the changing social issues and the current dilemma Japan faces regarding the future of its nuclear energy policy and its efforts to overcome the domestic and international pressures to ensure safety and security.

Galvanized by international initiatives and further motivated by the oil crises in the 1970s, Japan's commitment to develop a closed nuclear fuel cycle, one which reprocesses fuel from thermal reactors for use in advanced fast breeder reactors, has remained resolute. However, program delays, international security concerns over the plutonium, a weapons-grade nuclear material and one of the products of reprocessing, and increasing public opposition to various components of the Atomic Energy Commissions’ Long-Term Program for Development and Utilization of Nuclear Energy, have put pressure on the government to resolve these issues.

The commitment to develop the technology on one hand is commendable however it has contributed to the dilemma the Japanese nuclear industry now faces: a growing stockpile of plutonium and no readily available means of reducing it. With growing public involvement, finding a straightforward technology solution is increasingly difficult.

In 1995, an accident at Monju, one of the first prototype fast breeder reactors in Japan, prompted the Commission to initiate the first Roundtable Conference. The purpose of the Conference was to open the policy making process in an effort to determine a “national consensus” on nuclear energy. Further accidents and on-going opposition further slowed the implementation of the Program, however, in the latest Program, released in 2000, the Commission attempts to address these issues while building in a new style of flexibility in order to allow for greater options in the future.     

Spent nuclear fuel policies in historical perspective: An international comparison

The purpose of this article is to explain why the world's nuclear power countries differ from each other with respect to their spent nuclear fuel (SNF) policies. The emergence and evolution of three principal SNF approaches are analyzed: direct disposal, reprocessing and SNF export. Five broad explanatory factors are identified and discussed in relation to the observed differences in policy outcomes: military ambitions and non-proliferation, technological culture, political culture and civil society, geological conditions, and energy policy. SNF policy outcomes can generally be seen to result from a complex interaction between these broad factors, but it is also possible to discern a number of important patterns. To the extent that the five factors may undergo far-reaching changes in the future, the historical experience of how they have shaped SNF policies also give a hint of possible future directions in SNF policymaking around the world.     

我国快堆闭式核燃料循环体系的现状及展望

基于铀资源需求和乏燃料积累预测，论证了我国发展快堆闲式核燃料循环的必要性，通过国内外调研，重点对影响我国快堆闭式循环的三个关键因素：钚元素积累、快堆技术、乏燃料后处理及快堆燃料技术的现状进行分析，并提出了展望和建议。     

Low enriched uranium and thorium fuel utilization under once‐through and offline reprocessing scenarios in small modular molten salt reactor

Using low enrichment uranium as driver fuel under once‐through mode in molten salt reactor (MSR) attracts more and more attention because of its fuel availability, no new technology, and nuclear nonproliferation. It is regarded as a wise research and development road to shorten deployment time of MSRs and to prepare techniques and experiences for thorium‐uranium breeding of MSRs in the future. However, this fuel management is still faced with some different technical routes, such as the selection of carrier salts, the enrichment of uranium, with or without thorium, and the recycle necessary of spent nuclear fuel. Therefore, various fuel cycle schemes were compared and analyzed using an in‐house developed fuel management code MOBAT. Different graphite assemblies were optimized by changing the salt volume fraction in core and dimension to find a region for best fuel utilization and negative temperature reactivity coefficient. Prismatic block with 10% volume fraction of molten salt is considered as a good assembly type because of its significant space shielding effect of U‐238. For carrier salts, LiF‐BeF₂ with 99.995% enriched Li‐7 displays higher fuel utilization and lower cost of fuel cycle than NaF‐BeF₂, while the tritium production at the beginning of life will be two orders of magnitude higher. For fuel enrichment, 20% enriched uranium is recommended because the background of neutron absorption from carrier salt and graphite will be more significant in lower enrichment condition. Importantly, it shows that thorium is a good breed and burned fuel in situ and could improve the fuel utilization by 20%. Also, offline reprocessing to recover the uranium is a commendable scheme when the cost of offline reprocessing is lower than 400 $/kgHN.     

The economic competitiveness of promising nuclear energy system: A closer look at the input uncertainties in LCOE analysis

In this study, we aimed to provide important information about the potential economic benefits and risks of nuclear electricity generation associated with existing and prevailing nuclear technologies and to examine the economic effects of nuclear fuel cycle strategies in Korea. An economic analysis model that evaluates the overall life‐cycle costs of nuclear energy systems coupled with multiple fuel cycle options was specially developed by using the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) as the fundamental methodology. This model is capable of identifying a range of techno‐economic uncertainties underlying each individual nuclear energy system taking into account the state of the art in fuel cycle technologies. It can also quantify and incorporate the resulting impacts into a system‐wide LCOE distribution for each fuel cycle option based on Monte Carlo probabilistic simulation. We analyzed and discussed examples of the economic performance of 13 promising candidates for nuclear energy systems integrated with extensive fuel cycle technologies (including one direct disposal and 12 specific reprocessing and recycling fuel cycle options). We also conducted a sensitivity analysis to investigate the major sensitivity factors of the system component cost in each fuel cycle option and their impacts on individual economic performances. Furthermore, a closer look at the techno‐economic uncertainties of advanced fuel cycle technologies in a break‐even analysis offers evidence of the potential economic feasibility and cost‐reduction opportunities in the reprocessing and recycling options relative to the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel.     

A proper spent nuclear fuel management strategy could enhance the continuity of nuclear power in the Spanish energy mix

This article presents two economic analyses performed with the Mariño model, which was specially designed to analyse the costs of different spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management strategies in the real Spanish context. These analyses are: (a) a Monte Carlo study for those strategies and (b) the effects of a longer operational lifetime for the Spanish nuclear power plants (NPPs) on the costs of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management. For the first analysis, a triangular distribution for the different unitary costs was assumed and the data and assumptions from numerous studies were used to obtain the values required for the distribution. The second analysis was performed for the current official shutdown dates for the NPPs, and the results were compared to other operational lifetime scenarios. The main assumption for these scenarios was a progressive shutdown of the reactors, in order to avoid numerous shutdowns in a few years. These scenarios were proposed for 40 to 60 years of mean operational lifetime of the reactors. The results show that, for all scenarios analysed, the additional electricity production due to longer operational lifetimes compensate the extra costs caused by the larger amount of SNF to be managed. Additionally, for the current SNF management strategy, a progressive shutdown at 40 years of mean operational lifetime has shown to entail lower costs than the official shutdown scenario. However, a strategy without a centralised interim storage facility would be the most economically favourable one for all the scenarios analysed.     

Simulation of thermal state of containers with spent nuclear fuel: multistage approach

The safe thermal conditions of spent nuclear fuel storage are the important component of complex safety of the dry spent nuclear fuel storage facility. The multistage approach for numerical definition of thermal fields in storage containers with spent fuel assemblies is proposed. The approach is based on solving of the series of the conjugate heat transfer problems with different geometrical detailing. The developed approach is used for estimation of thermal state of ventilated containers with spent nuclear fuel of WWER‐1000 reactors of Zaporizhska nuclear power plant. The results of the thermal calculations for single‐placed container on open‐site storage platform were presented. The safety of containers usage in normal and extreme ambient temperatures was proven. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.