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...

Nuclear power plants alone are not a proliferation risk. Without enrichment or reprocessing capabilities, power-reactor fuel, whether fresh or spent, cannot be used for the production of nuclear weapons. There are various ways, however, in which reactor projects and related nuclear fuel-cycle facilities could be used to further a nuclear-weapons development programme. This chapter describes the...

Dr. Charles W. Nakhleh is a technical staff member in the Safeguards Systems Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His research interests include the applications of environmental monitoring to international safeguards, safeguarding of advanced nuclear fuel cycles, and policy and technology issues related to the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nu...

The only significant development of the AUS system has been an extension.of the available cross-sections. That portion of the ENDF/B V data files which is unrestricted has been acquired from the IAEA Nuclear Data Section and the data processed for the AUS.ENDF2006 group library as required. In particular, a large set of fission product data has been processtid, sufficient for calculations of bo...

In application of the act of 25 July 1980 that provided for nuclear materials to be nationally controlled in France, IRSN carries out inspections covering the physical protection of nuclear materials, physical follow-up, and accountancy within French facilities. Some inspections give rise to physical verifications of nuclear materials held by operators, resorting to non-destructive measurement....

The United States repository for high-level waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is currently scheduled to open in 2048—more than a century after generation of the first HLW. This failure is a consequence of the cold war history and an institutional structure that provided insufficient confidence and incentives to states and communities to host a repository. The U.S. government is now consi...

Commercial nuclear reactors and storage facilities for their spent fuel contain large amounts of radioactive material, and are not designed to resist attack. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined, however, that these facilities require only a light defense. This paper shows, without disclosing any sensitive information, that reactors and spent-fuelstorage facilities have vul...

To ascertain solid tumor mortality in towns near Spain's four nuclear power plants and four nuclear fuel facilities from 1975 to 1993, we conducted a mortality study based on 12,245 cancer deaths in 283 towns situated within a 30-km radius of the above installations. As nonexposed areas, we used 275 towns lying within a 50- to 100-km radius of each installation, matched by population size and s...