It is desirable to devise a solution for the fuel cycle back-end that is acceptable from the society as well as technologically and economically viable. While satisfactory technological solutions exist, they only address portions of the overall problem. A fully integrated effective solution satisfying all public concerns has yet to be developed. In particular, we aim to establish a comprehensiv...

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...

To assure safe shutdown of a nuclear power plant, there must always be reliable means of decay heat removal provided, in last resort, by an Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS). Currently the majority of nuclear power plants in the US utilize diesel generator sets as on-site emergency power generating units. In addition to the loss of off-site power, plants can lose their on-site AC power, a co...

Anaerobic digestion provides renewable energy through waste valorisation, but the digestate by-product is underutilised and presents a risk to water quality. Mechanical separation partitions phosphorous into solid fraction further processing fuel pellet can provide an additional source of revenue. Previous economic analyses looked only at aspects system (e.g. operational costs solely) requires ...

Dædalus Winter 2010 This two-volume special issue of Dædalus highlights the challenges associated with the global expansion of nuclear power. The topics covered include environmental impacts, nuclear safety, and the economics of nuclear power production, but the major emphasis is on nonproliferation and security aspects. To develop an understanding of possible problems and their potential solut...

This paper aims to investigate and compare the burnup processes of VVER-1200 reactor fueled with reactor-grade weapon-grade plutonium mixed depleted uranium (MOX) through simulation GETERA code. The calculation was performed using a unit fuel cell model, taking into account center hole pellet gas gap between cladding. number reloads for all cases calculated. infinite multiplication factor versu...

Fuel cycle cost of a fast reactor is expected to play an important role of compensating for higher capital cost of a Fast Reactor and keeping the unit energy cost competitive. PFBR fuel cycle cost has been worked out by a committee constituted for the purpose. The cost has been worked out for a peak fuel burn-up of 1,00,000 MWd/t. The basic components of the PFBR fuel cycle are fabrication cost...

the industrial growth of any developing country largely depends on the availability of abundant energy resources. according to the energy survey carried out by international atomic energy agency, (1) the contribution which nuclear energy will make towards the total energy requirements of the developed countries of the world by the end of the century will be about 50%. in iran by the year 1992 t...

The first step in investigation of thorium fuel is evaluation of the results obtained from the spectral code for this type of fuel. The benchmark summarized by IAEA in 2003 was used for partial validation of the code HELIOS 1.9. The benchmark was focused on a comparison of the methods and basic nuclear data. Acceptable results of benchmark comparison allowed examining and comparing different ad...