A National Cancer Institute (NCI) survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 20, 1991, showed no general increased risk of death from cancer for people living in 107 U.S. counties containing or closely adjacent to 62 nuclear facilities. The facilities in the survey had all begun operation before 1982. Included were 52 commercial nuclear power plants, nine Departm...

In the Advanced Fuel Cycle Research & Development (AFC R&D) activities, the uranium extraction (UREX+1) process is proposed as one of the most promising technique to separate transuranic elements (TRU) from light water reactor spent nuclear fuel in the years to come. The isotope Tc will be separated together with U within the first process steps. After the separation of U, Tc must be immobilize...

Recently, interest in thorium’s potential use in a nuclear fuel cycle has been renewed. Thorium is more abundant, at least on average, than uranium in the earth’s crust and, therefore, could theoretically extend the use of nuclear energy technology beyond the economic limits of uranium resources. This paper provides an economic assessment of thorium availability by creating cumulative-availabil...

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology this paper analyses andcompares the complete fuel cycles of current (Gen II) and future (Gen III) nuclearreactor operations in order to determine the contributions to greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions from the individual stages of the nuclear energy chains. Theresearch focused on electricity generated by European Pressurised Reactors...

Measuring resource efficiency can be achieved using different methods, of which primary energy demand is commonly used. The primary energy factor (PEF) is a figure describing how much energy from primary resources is being used per unit of energy delivered. The PEF for nuclear power is typically 3, which refers to thermal energy released from fission in relation to electricity generated. Fuel l...

India has chalked out a nuclear power program based on its domestic resource position of uranium and thorium. The first stage started with setting up the Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) based on natural uranium and pressure tube technology. In the second phase, the fissile material base will be multiplied in Fast Breeder Reactors using the plutonium obtained from the PHWRs. Considering ...

This paper presents the French contribution to the Joint Study of the IAEA’s International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO). It concerns the application of the INPRO methodology to a French scenario, on the transition from present LWRs to EPRs in a first phase and to 4th generation fast reactors in a second phase during the 21st century. The scenario also considers...