Reprocessing of Spent Nuclear Fuel

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Reprocessing ofSpent Nuclear Fuel

• November 7th, 2005

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Atoms for Peace Address by President. Dwight D.
Eisenhower, To the 470th Plenary Meeting of the
United Nations General AssemblyDecember 8,
1953, 245 p.m.
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Commercial Reprocessing Timeline

• December 8, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
  Atoms For Peace Speech
• 1963 Humboldt Bay Nuclear Plant went commercial
• 1966, Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) opens in West
  Valley, New York
• NFS is the first of three reprocessing facilities
  that were planned
• Humboldt Bay shipped 270 assemblies (21 MTU)
  from 1969 to 1971
• NFS received a total of 628 MTU from commercial
  and government facilities and recovered 1,925 kg
  of Pu (86 kg of Pu from Humboldt)
• 1972, NFS shuts down for expansion and never
  reopens

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Commercial Reprocessing Timeline, cont.

• 1974, Reprocessing Slowed by President Ford
• India tests their Nuclear weapon using plutonium
  possibly from the US
• 1976, Reprocessing Stopped by President Carter,
  and NFS Closes permanently
• 1982, The Nuclear Waste Policy Act is Enacted
• 1983, DOE selected nine candidate repository
  sites and one was Yucca Mountain.
• 2003 President Bush Authorizes Yucca Mount and
  State of Nevada sues
• Reprocessing is in the spotlight

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Various steps that together make up the entire
Nuclear Fuel Cycle
URANIUM INFORMATION CENTRE Ltd. .C.N. 005 503 828
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Spent Nuclear Fuel contains

• By activity, the spent fuel is approximately
• 95 uranium (U-238)
• lt 1 is fissionable uranium (U-235)
• 1 is plutonium (Pu)
• 3 is comprised of waste fission products
• Mostly Cesium 137 and Strontium 90
• By weight, the spent fuel is approximately
• 86 U-238
• 1 U-235
• 10 Oxygen
• 1 Pu
• 1 fission products
• 1 hardware (Zirconium and stainless steel)

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Spent Nuclear Fuel as waste

• 40 years of commercial nuclear power has only
  produced an inventory of spent fuel in the U.S.
  that would fill one football field to depth of
  below 30 feet.
• In 2005, there is approx. 52,000 tons of
  high-level waste stored around the country,
• Approximately 2,000 tons of high level waste is
  generated in the US each year.
• The Yucca Mountain repository presently is
  designed for a capacity of 77,000 tons.

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1 Gbq1X109 bq 1 bq 1 disintegrations per sec
(dps) 37x109 bq 3.7x1010 dps 1 curie Curie
That quantity of radioactive nuclide which decays
at a rate of 3.7x1010 dps
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Reprocessing

• Reprocessing separates uranium and plutonium from
  waste products
• Spent fuel rods are chopped up and dissolved in
  acid to separate the various materials. Mostly
  Uranium 238 (95)
• Recovered Uranium 235 (1) is converted to
  uranium hexafluoride for subsequent re-enrichment
  of new fuel.
• The reactor-grade plutonium (1) can be blended
  with enriched uranium to produce a mixed oxide
  (MOX) fuel.
• The remaining of high-level radioactive wastes
  (3) can be stored in liquid form and
  subsequently solidified (Vitrified)
• Commercial Reprocessing plants planed to use
  verification which is based on calcining of the
  wastes (evaporation to a dry powder)

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Reprocessing cont.

• The dry powered waste is incorporation in
  borosilicate (Pyrex) glass.
• The molten glass mixed with the dry wastes is
  poured into large stainless steel canisters, each
  holding 400kg
• A year's waste from a 1000 MWe reactor is
  contained in 5 tons of such glass
• About twelve canisters each 1.3 meters high and
  0.4 meters diameter.
• The US first started reprocessing in the 1940s to
  extract the plutonium for use in nuclear weapons
• Reprocessing Facilities in Europe, Japan and
  Russia have been operating for almost 40 years.

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Loading silos with canisters containing vitrified
high-level waste in the UK,Each disc on the
floor covers a silo holding ten canisters
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1 Gbq1X109 bq 1 bq 1 disintegrations per sec
(dps) 37x109 bq 3.7x1010 dps 1 curie Curie
That quantity of radioactive nuclide which decays
at a rate of 3.7x1010dps
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Reprocessing Does

• Reduces the volume of high level waste by
  primarily removing the U-238 from the waste
  stream.
• Allows the recycling of U-235 back into the fuel
  cycle.
• Makes Plutonium available for Mixed Oxide Fuels
  (MOX)
• Could develop a market for weapons grade
  plutonium

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Reprocessing Does Not

• Remove the need for a disposal site for long
  lived radioactive waste
• Directly address the resulting plutonium inventory

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Conclusion

• Reprocessing is good for
• An expanding Nuclear industry
• Efficient use of already extracted Uranium
  materials
• Reducing mining of new Uranium ore
• Reducing the volume of high level waste
• Reprocessing is not good for
• A shrinking nuclear industry
• Today, reducing the cost of nuclear energy

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Questions
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(Courtesy of the Department of Energy)
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Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel

• MOX fuel requires a facility redesign/Relicensing
  to use in US nuclear plant and no taker to date.
• MOX fuel was being fabricated at facilities in
  Belgium, France, Germany, UK, Russia and Japan.
• The first large-scale plant, Melox, commenced
  operation in France in 1995.
• Across Europe about 30 reactors are licensed to
  load 20-50 of their cores with MOX fuel and
  Japan plans to have one third of its 54 reactors
  using MOX by 2010.

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Accelerator Transmutation of Waste

• Spent Fuel uranium and short-lived fission
  products are removed from the rest of the waste.
• These short-lived fission products are prepared
  for disposal, while the uranium can be recycled
  for reuse or prepared for disposal.
• The remaining transuranics (plutonium, neptunium,
  americium and curium) are transferred to a waste
  burner
• They are fissioned into materials that pose
  mostly short-lived hazards.
• The fission process is controlled using neutrons
  produced by an accelerator's proton beam as it
  strikes a target of the long-lived fission
  products .
• The long-lived fission products would capture
  neutrons and be converted into stable or
  short-lived materials.
• This could result in
• Energy production
• Elimination of plutonium which could be used in
  nuclear weapons

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Nine original Sites for the Repository

• Vacherie dome, Louisiana (salt dome)
• Cypress dome, Mississippi (salt dome)
• Richton dome, Mississippi (salt dome)
• Yucca Mountain, Nevada (tuff)
• Deaf Smith County, Texas (bedded salt)
• Swisher County, Texas (bedded salt)
• Davis Canyon, Utah (bedded salt)
• Lavender Canyon, Utah (bedded salt)
• Hanford Site, Washington (basalt flows).