Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Spent nuclear fuel

Showing posts with label Spent nuclear fuel. Show all posts

Friday, January 7, 2011

India opens new reprocessing plant

India opens new reprocessing plant
Nuclear scientists and engineers were called 'nation builders' by prime minister Manmohan Singh as he inaugurated India's latest reprocessing plant.

Singh opens the Power Reactor Fuel
Reprocessing Plant-2

The facility at Tarapur will break down highly radioactive used nuclear fuel to extract uranium and plutonium for reuse in fast neutron reactors.
"We have come a long way since the first reprocessing of spent fuel in India in 1964 at Trombay," said Singh at yesterday's ceremony, "The recycling and optimal utilization of uranium is essential to meet our current and future energy security needs."

There are already several reprocessing plants in India - all operated by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre - at Tarapur, Trombay and Kalpakkam. Small plants at each site were supplemented in 1998 by a new one of 100 tonnes per year at Kalpakkam, and this is now being extended to so that it may handle carbide fuel from the Fast Breeder Test Reactor.

The new plant inaugurated yesterday at Tarapur also has a capacity of 100 tonnes per year, and another entirely new facility is under construction at Kalpakkam.

Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency told World Nuclear News that this second reprocessing plant at Tarapur is not among the facilities covered by the early 'type 66' safeguards agreement or the more comprehensive India-specific safeguards regime agreed last year.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Geopolitical Briefing: Japan's nuclear industry

We have published a new members-only Geopolitical
Briefing, entitled "Critical Decisions Looming for
Japan's Nuclear Industry".

Link:
http://globalintelligencereport.com/articles/critical-decisions-looming-for-japan-nuclear-industry

Summary:
Japan is advancing with plans to reprocess spent
nuclear fuel and boost its external nuclear exports.
These decisions will impact the conduct of Japan’s
global non-proliferation diplomacy.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A US-South Korea Nuclear Pact from AsiaSentinel

A stronger, more modern South Korea needs to modify its reprocessing spent fuel pact

A stronger, more modern South Korea needs to modify its reprocessing spent fuel pact

It appears, in the wake of US President Barack Obama's visit to South Korea last week that the US still has reservations about allowing Seoul to reprocess spent plutonium for industrial uses, partly because of Japan's concerns, having been the only country that has had a bomb dropped on it, and because of the dilemma of the outlaw nuclear program in North Korea.

The decades-old atomic agreement between South Korea and the US – signed when South Korea's economy was about the size of North Korea's today – is to expire in March 2014. Under the terms of the agreement, Seoul is barred from reprocessing used plutonium or enriching uranium – two processes that in addition to creating nuclear fuel can be used to produce fissile material for a weapon.

There is a basic perception in Seoul that the ROK-US nuclear energy agreement, outdated as it is, must be revised to embrace industrial demands of nuclear energy as well as an enhanced role for South Korea in the world. The pact was initially signed in 1972 and revised in 1974 in the height of the cold war.

But beyond the idea of increased demands for nuclear power, any consensus is unlikely to be made because of a sharp difference of perspectives over whether it's appropriate to allow Seoul to reprocess and enrich spent fuel which could make the development of nuclear weapons possible, if not impossible in theory. More at:

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2826&Itemid=182

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Debate on Nuclear Fuel Cask Safety

A panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments late last week whether Pacific Gas and Electric needed to conduct environmental analysis on the vulnerability of spent nuclear fuel casks stored at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plan. Attorneys for Mothers for Peace argued that such analysis was required and demanded access to security documents long deemed top secret to ensure that proper analysis has been conducted and that proper safeguards have been taken. In 2002, Pacific Gas & Electric was granted permission to be begin storing spent fuel rods that have been accumulating at Diablo Canyon—because no final repository for such nuclear wastes exists in the United States—in giant concrete cased steel lined caskets. Mothers for Peace has insisted that these storage tasks would be easy pickings to any terrorist with an airplane. PG&E officials have insisted the casks are built to withstand a direct hit by a plane. They’ve also argued against allowing anyone without high level government security clearance to examine whatever internal precautions they’ve taken for such terrorist eventualities.
http://www.independent.com/news/2010/nov/11/debate-nuclear-fuel-cask-safety/

Monday, October 11, 2010

SKB Ready To Apply For Permits To Build Spent Nuclear Fuel Repository

Aerial photo of the site investigation area in Forsmark.

Stockholm, Sweden (SPX) Oct 08, 2010 The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) has submitted its latest RD and D programme to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority. Based on the programme SKB now has the knowledge to submit the applications to build a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark. SKB plans to submit the applications in March 2011. According to the Swedish Nuclear Activities Act, SKB and its owners are required to present the knowledge and research status within the nuclear fuel area every third year.
"We are pleased to say that, after more than 30 years of research and development, SKB will now complete the applications for permits to build a final repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark, north of Stockholm," says Claes Thegerstrom, CEO, SKB.
The research programme involves a systematic review of the present situation and future plans within all areas where SKB is conducting research and technical development.
The now developed methodology for safety analysis allows SKB to demonstrate that we can fulfill the authorities highly set safety requirements. The programme is currently focusing on getting a deeper understanding of the natural changes that may occur in a geological repository in the long-term.
The plans for management and disposal of the low- and intermediate level waste are being developed and detailed in the Fud-programme 2010, which was requested in the authorities' review of the Fud-programme in 2007.
Among other activities SKB is planning to submit the applications to expand the capacity of the existing final repository for short-lived radioactive waste, SFR, by 2013. The extended facility is expected to become operational in 2020.
"Based on all the scientific and technical work that has been compiled over the years, we can now take the next step in the Swedish nuclear waste programme. SKB will, however, continue its work on research and development. The management of spent nuclear fuel will continue to be conducted with the best knowledge even in the future," Claes Thegerstrom finishes.
SKB is planning to submit its applications to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and the Environmental Court in March 2011. Dependant upon a positive outcome from the review of the applications the construction of the nuclear fuel repository can be started in 2015, with an estimated start of disposal operations by 2025.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Why the LFTR is Still Needed

A new MiT report, The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, argues that

Uranium supplies will not limit the expansion of nuclear power in the US or around the world for the foreseeable futurer . . .

This should quiet the anti-nuclear power camp on that particular issue, but it won/t. Critics of nuclear power have a tin ear when it comes to evidence. Any evidence that discredits their position simply does not exist, in their minds, and thus they will discount the MiT Report, and continue to tell us that we are running out of uranium.

If we are not running out of uranium is their any justification for the LFTR, a reactor that operates on an alternative - Thorium - fuel cycle? The answer is that there are several good reasons for adopting LFTR technology, even though there may be a large supply of accessible uranium.

One major reason for choosing the LFTR is that it invites far lower fuel cycle related capital investments. If the future reactor fleet is to be entirely uranium fueled, very large capital investments will have to go into uranium mines, processing facilities, enrichment facilities, and spent fuel management. in addition all of these facilities have significant operation costs attached.

More at:
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2010/09/wht-lftr-is-still-needed.html

Monday, September 20, 2010

MIT looks at US fuel cycle options

20 September 2010

The availability of uranium resources, as well as scientifically sound methods for managing used nuclear fuel, should mean that nuclear fuel will not need to be recycled in the USA for much of this century at least, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In 2003, MIT published a report on The Future of the Nuclear Power, which said "that in order to make a serious contribution to alleviating global climate change, the world would need new nuclear plants with a total capacity of at least a terawatt [1000 gigawatts] by 2050." In an update of that report in 2009, MIT noted that the rate of deployment of new nuclear power plants around the world has been much slower than needed in order to combat climate change.

MIT announced that it has now released a report on The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle because "of the continuing importance of nuclear power as a low-carbon option that could be deployed at a scale that is material for mitigating climate change risk, namely, global deployment at the terawatt scale by mid-century."

It added, "Because of the significant changes in the landscape, we have undertaken this study ... to bring a sharper focus on the key technical choices available for an expanded nuclear power program in the US and the near-term policy implications of those choices."

According to MIT, "In the US, fuel cycle policies have been in a state of confusion." It said, "To enable an expansion of nuclear power, it must overcome critical challenges in cost, waste disposal, and proliferation concerns while maintaining its currently excellent safety and reliability record." MIT added, "In the relatively near term, important decisions may be taken with far reaching long-term implications about the evolution of the nuclear fuel cycle - what type of fuel is used, what types of reactors, what happens to irradiated fuel, and what method of disposal for long term nuclear wastes. This study aims to inform those decisions."

The report states, "A key message from our work is that we can and should preserve our options for fuel cycle choices by continuing with the open fuel cycle, implementing a system for managed light water reactor (LWR) spent fuel storage, developing a geological repository, and researching technology alternatives

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Nuclear fuel reprocessing needs support, not subsidies: Areva exec

Loan guarantees are key to nuclear reprocessing, exec says

The push for advanced technology to reprocess used nuclear fuel needs a decisive U.S. policy that includes loan guarantees, said Alan Henson, Areva executive vice president of technologies and used-fuel management. His statement came in response to Marvin Resnikoff, senior associate of Radioactive Waste Management Associates, who told a subcommittee of the federal commission on nuclear waste that no company would develop reprocessing facilities unless it received federal supports. Platts