Nuclear fuel cycle international atomic energy agency. Removal of xenon xe and krypton kr from process offgases containing 400 ppm xe, 40 ppm kr, 78% n2, 21% o2, 0. Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and unused uranium from spent nuclear fuel. Spent nuclear fuel reprocessing flowsheet nuclear energy agency. We cover reprocessing technology as well as current research and innovation in the area, as well as its environmental impact, the current policy climate in the united states, and an. Nureg1909 background, status and issues related to the. Nuclear fuel reprocessing is a controversial process by which spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed to extract uranium. Reprocessing of spent commercialreactor nuclear fuel has not been permitted in. Costs of reprocessing versus directly disposing of spent.
Unfortunately, reprocessing proponents have used this opportunity to promote reprocessing as the solution for managing our nuclear waste. Nuclear fuel reprocessing nuclear energy encyclopedia. Recyclingnuclearfueland the new smr small modular reactor technology. This paper analyzes the technological, economic and social feasibility of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel in the united states. Bush administration to form an international partnership to see spent nuclear fuel reprocessed in a way that renders the plutonium in it usable for nuclear fuel but not for nuclear weapons. The objective of this entry is to give a basic overview of the technology elements behind nuclear fuel reprocessing. Finally, in section iv, we explore the social problems of nuclear reprocessing.
This report aims to collect spent nuclear fuel reprocessing flowsheet of various processes. Uranium would be scarce and expensive, sodiumcooled breeders could be developed with reasonable speed and cost. Nuclear fuel reprocessing is the process of collecting nuclear waste to recover and reuse plutonium and uranium. Contrary to their claims, however, reprocessing is extremely expensive, highly polluting, and a proliferation threat, and will. Missouri university of science and technology, nuclear engineering, 222 fulton hall, 1870 miner circle, rolla, mo, usa. Closing the nuclear fuel cycle by reprocessing the spent fuel and recycle of uranium and plutonium back into reactor systems helps in exploiting the full potential. The nuclear fuel cycle consists of frontend steps that prepare uranium for use in nuclear reactors and backend steps to safely manage, prepare, and dispose of usedor spentbut still highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel uranium is the most widely used fuel by nuclear power plants for nuclear fission. Costs of breeder reactors plus reprocessing would be modest. Production of denaturated fissile fuel in a thorium fusion breeder has been investigated by mixing the fertile fuel with naturaluo2 and lwr light water reactors spent nuclear fuel. Option to use or dispose processed products in the nuclear fuel cycle. Global nuclear markets market arrangements and service.
Reprocessing technology is analyzed as well as its economic costs, environmental impacts, and implications on domestic policy. Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and unused uranium from. Plutonium and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel science. Objective the main objectives of this publication are to present the available reprocessing and recycling services based.
Though mof materials showed superior sorption properties toward i 2 over silverbased sorbents and activated carbon 62, most of the experiments were performed in organic solvent i. Nuclear fuel reprocessing is performed routinely in europe, russia and japan. Keywords robotics, teleoperation, forcefeedback control, radiation tolerant electronics. However, countries such as france and japan are developing more and more dependence on reprocessing cycles. Alliedgeneral nuclear services began constructing a large commercial. Two wellknown metalorganic frameworks mofs, hkust1 and nidobdc, which both have unsaturated metal centers but different pore morphologies, were selected as novel adsorbents. Spent fuel reprocessing international panel on fissile.
View enhanced pdf access article on wiley online library html view download pdf for offline viewing. Used nuclear fuel contains large quantities of valuable nuclear materials that can be recycled for further use in producing electricity 2. One uranium fuel pellet creates as much energy as one ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Reprocessing is as old as nuclear reactors, because the first reactors were built to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. The proliferation problems related to reprocessing could be overcome. As part of the world war ii effort to develop the atomic bomb, reprocessing technology was developed to chemically separate and recover fissionable plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. Involvement of nearly times less radioactivity in the 10year cooled fuel than that in the 150day standard cooling time cooled fuel, and the adoption of coprocessing of u and pu in a new. Nuclear fuel reprocessing an overview sciencedirect topics. Federally sponsored breeder reactor development included research into advanced reprocessing. Nuclear fuel that has gone through at least one irradiation cycle in a nuclear reactor. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. The three major areas of research were 1 process description and flowsheet calculations, 2 plant design, and 3 cost estimation.
Tens of thousands of tons of radioactive material were reprocessed at the savannah river site srs near aiken, sc, from the mid1950s through the beginning of this decade. The generation of electricity by lightwatercooled nuclear power reactors using enriched uranium for fuel is experiencing rapid growth in the united states. The nuclear power markets addressed in this report include the designconstruction of reactors, and the nuclear fuel cycle services of conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, used fuel storage and reprocessing. In nuclear reprocessing, spent fuel is refined to decrease the amount of waste generated in a nuclear reaction and to extract usable materials for fuel in future reactions. Ssg42 safety of nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities iaea safety standards series no. Four decades of fuel reprocessing experience also led chem plant scientists and engineers to significant achievements in technologies and facilities to manage the high level liquid wastes that were the byproducts of the fuel reprocessing cycle. Metalorganic frameworks for removal of xe and kr from. Their report, the economics of the nuclear fuel cycle oecdnea, 1993, concluded that the levelized fuel cost for the oncethrough lwr fuel cycle is approximately 14% less than for the reprocessing cycle. Ebrii fuel reprocessing and refabrication operations were suspended.
It contains a mixture of actinides and fission products. Nuclear fuel reprocessing was developed for recovery of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons with regard for ultimate disposal of radioactive wastes. Reprocessing of highlevel waste is controversial because it produces large quantities of liquid highlevel waste from the solvents used, and also because extracted plutonium or uranium is easily amenable to illicit nuclear weapons. A white paper was prepared in response to that direction and focuses on three major areas. Iodine i 2 should be captured in nuclear fuel reprocessing or nuclear accidents mainly due to its longlived 129 i isotope t 12 1. Pdf on jan 1, 2015, robin taylor and others published reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. In the late 1970s, the united states decided on nuclear non. The importance of public acceptance for a reprocessing strategy is discussed. Reprocessing, the chemical separation of usable uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear power reactor fuel, produces plutonium which can be used to construct a nuclear weapon. Reprocessing and spent nuclear fuel management at the savannah river site some of the terms used in this factsheet are defined in ieers online glossary.
Reprocessing also reduces the amount of radioactive waste that must be managed. It should serve as a starting point for more detailed study with the aid of the bibliography section to obtain more technical details on this subject. Nuclear fuel reprocessing franke institute university of chicago. In the closed nuclear fuel cycle, spent reactor fuel is reprocessed to recover the uranium and plutonium to fuel nuclear reactors using the purex process. Safeguard systems used at federal reprocessing plants cannot assure that diversions of weaponsusable material for unauthorized purposes can be detected in a timely manner. A nuclear reprocessing facility takes the spent fuel from nuclear power sources and regenerates the fuel into a usable form once again. Reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel presents an authoritative overview of spent fuel reprocessing, considering future prospects for advanced closed fuel cycles.
The politics, science, environment, and common sense of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing 3 decades later pdf. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into mox nuclear fuel for thermal reactors. Introduction in the facilities of the end of the nuclear fuel cycle, like spent fuel storage pools, reprocessing plants, plutoniumbased fuel manufacturing plants or waste temporary storage. There is not a nuclear reprocessing facility currently operating in the united states.
Nuclear reprocessing technology that separates actinides from the spent fuel via liquidliquid extraction involving acidic aqueous and organic liquid phases. Squeezing more energy out of used fuel would be good for the nations economy and environment. Pdf reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel. With its distinguished international team of contributors, advanced separation techniques for nuclear fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste treatment is a standard reference for all nuclear waste management and nuclear safety professionals, radiochemists, academics and researchers in this field. Thus, reprocessing and recycling of snf could be one of the key points to improve the social acceptability of nuclear energy. The agreements implementing thisprogram allowed a sharing of information about industrial applicationsof nuclear energy, including nuclear fuel reprocessing techniques, whilediscouraging nuclear weapons proliferation. In the early stage of commercial nuclear power, reprocessing was thought essential to supplying nuclear fuel. Reprocessing and spent nuclear fuel management at the. Uranium is an abundant metal and is full of energy. Idaho national laboratory fuel reprocessing complex. Nuclear power plants use a certain type of uraniumu235as fuel because its. Japan began its development of a closednuclear fuel cycle in.
The current process used for spent fuel reprocessing, drawing on. The reprocessed uranium, also known as the spent fuel material. Purex reprocessing of 10year cooled lwr fuel was investigated. A brief description of the nuclear fuel cycle is included as. Iaea safety standards for protecting people and the environment specific safety guide no. Chem plant from reactor programs across the country. Consideration of a lease or loan of nuclear fuel instead of buying.
We are refocusing on documenting factual analysis of data concerning nuclear technology, yucca mountain and the feasibility analysis of a commercially viable nuclear reprocessing energy. The separated plutonium can be used to fuel reactors, but also to make nuclear weapons. These include 1 recovery of the valuable fissile constituents primarily 235u and. B the cost of directly disposing of spent nuclear fuel is less than the cost of reprocessing it. H istorically, chemical separation or reprocessing technologies have been used to separate the plutonium and uranium in irradiated nuclear fuel from fission products and from other isotopes that have built up as a result of neutron absorption. Reprocessing is a series of chemical operations that separates plutonium and uranium from other nuclear waste contained in the used or spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. It does not come out of the ground ready to go into a reactor, though. The nea data bank provides nuclear data and computer program services for participating countries.
Discussions in japan about nuclear fuel cycle choices have given insufficient consideration to regional security implications of domestic decisions about uranium enrichment and the civil reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Despite decades of research into fuel reprocessing, the technology has yet to prove costeffective and the field is littered with examples of wasteful governmentsponsored boondoggles. The spent fuel reprocessing options assessment of economics, proliferation resistance, and environmental impact are discussed. Purex nuclear reprocessing technology that separates actinides from the spent fuel via liquid liquid extraction involving acidic aqueous and organic. The aec invited public comment on a proposed policy in the form of appendix f to 10 c. Reprocessing of used nuclear fuel is undertaken for several reasons. Forcefeedback teleoperation of an industrial robot in a. The safety guide is not intended to cover the storage of spent fuel if this is part of the operation of a nuclear power plant or spent fuel reprocessing facility. This paper analyzes the process of nuclear fuel reprocessing, where spent nuclear. Guidance is provided on all stages in the lifetime of a spent fuel storage facility, from planning through siting and design to operation and decommissioning, and in particular. Their analysis included a credit for both the uranium and the plutonium recovered through reprocessing.
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