Lessons Learned From the Operation of Large-Scale Reprocessing-Recycling Facilities in France: What Is in It for China?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Gros
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
The Impact

AREVA has been running since decades nuclear reprocessing and recycling installations in France. Several industrial facilities have been built and used to this aim across the time. Following those decades and with the more and more precise monitoring of the impact of those installations, precise data and lessons-learned have been collected that can be used for the stakeholders of potential new facilities. China has expressed strong interest in building such facilities. As a matter of fact, the issue of accumulation of spent fuel is becoming serious in China and jeopardizes the operation of several nuclear power plants, through the running out of space of storage pools. Tomorrow, with the extremely high pace of nuclear development of China, accumulation of spent fuel will be unbearable. Building reprocessing and recycling installations takes time. A decision has to be taken so as to enable the responsible development of nuclear in China. Without a solution for the back end of its nuclear fuel cycle, the development of nuclear energy will face a wall. This is what the Chinese central government, through the action of its industrial CNNC, has well understood. Several years of negotiations have been held with AREVA. Everybody in the sector seems now convinced. However, now that the negotiation is coming to an end, an effort should be done towards all the stakeholders, sharing actual information from France’s reference facilities on: safety, security, mitigation measures for health protection (of the workers, of the public), mitigation measures for the protection of the environment. Most of this information is public, as France has since years promulgated a law on Nuclear transparency. China is also in need for more transparency, yet lacks means to access this public information, often in French language, so let’s open our books!

Transmutation and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

2006 ◽  
Vol 985 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bresee
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Closed Fuel Cycle ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The U.S

AbstractIn the January 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush announced a new Advanced Energy Initiative, a significant part of which is the Global Nuclear Energy Initiative. Its details were described on February 6, 2006 by the U.S. Secretary of Energy. In summary, it has three parts: (1) a program to expand nuclear energy use domestically and in foreign countries to support economic growth while reducing the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. (2) an expansion of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure that will lead to the recycling of spent fuel and a closed fuel cycle and, through transmutation, a reduction in the quantity and radiotoxicity of nuclear waste and its proliferation concerns, and (3) a partnership with other fuel cycle nations to support nuclear power in additional nations by providing small nuclear power plants and leased fuel with the provision that the resulting spent fuel would be returned by the lessee to the lessor. The final part would have the effect of stabilizing the number of fuel cycle countries with attendant non-proliferation value. Details will be given later in the paper.

Study on the Impact Limiter Design in Spent Fuel Transfer Cask in Nuclear Power Plants

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuchen Hao ◽  
Yue Li ◽  
Jinhua Wang ◽  
Bin Wu ◽  
Haitao Wang
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Nuclear Power Plants ◽  
Theoretical Method ◽  
Structure Design ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Typical Structure ◽  
Explicit Finite Element ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In nuclear power plants, the amount of spent fuel stored on-site is limited. Therefore, it is necessary to be shipped to off-site storage or disposal facilities regularly. The key risk in the transfer of spent fuel involves a release of radiation that could cause harmful effects to people and the environment. Transfer casks with impact limiters on both ends are always employed to ensure safe containment of radioactive materials, which should be verified by the 9 meters drop test onto an unyielding surface according to IAEA SSR-6. In this paper, we focus on the influence of the impact-limiter parameters, including geometry dimensions and mechanical properties, on the results of drop events to achieve an optimized approach for design. The typical structure of impact limiter is bulk energy-absorbed material wrapped by thin stainless-steel shells. Compared to traditional wood, foam has advantages of isotropy and steady quality. In this paper, theoretical and numerical methods are both adopted to investigate the influence of impact limiters during hypothetical accidental conditions for optimizing buffer influence and protecting the internal fuel components. First of all, a series of polyurethane foam is selected according to the theoretical method, because its mechanical property is related to density. Therefore, using explicit finite element method to investigate the influence of parameters of foam in impact limiter. These discrete points from the above result can be utilized to establish damage curves by date fitting. Finally, a design approach for spent fuel transfer cask is summarized, to provide a convenient formula to predict the damage and optimize structure design in drop condition. Furthermore, this design approach can be applied in the multi-module shared system of SNF, which can contain different fuel assemblies.

Grid-Connected Nuclear Power Plant Key Issues Summary

2014 ◽  
Vol 521 ◽  
pp. 530-535
Author(s):  
Meng Wang ◽  
Jian Ding ◽  
Tian Tang ◽  
Zhang Sui Lin ◽  
Zhen Da Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Power Plant ◽  
Nuclear Power Plant ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Power Modeling ◽  
Modeling Simulation ◽  
Load Following ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Impact

The current situation of nuclear power plants at home and abroad is described, and the impact of large-scale nuclear power accessing to the grid is analyzed, specifically in the aspects of nuclear power modeling, simulation, load following, reliability, fault diagnosis, etc. Nuclear power accessing to the grid will bring a series of problems, the causes of each problem, the main solutions and future development directions are summarized.

scholarly journals Nuclear Fuel Transmutation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akbar Abbasi
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Electric Energy ◽  
Computer Code ◽  
Natural Uranium ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Used Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Front End

Nuclear power plants to generates electric energy used nuclear fuel such as Uranium Oxide (UOX). A typical VVER−1000 reactor uses about 20–25 tons of spent fuel per year. The fuel transmutation of UOX fuel was evaluated by VISTA computer code. In this estimation the front end and back end components of fuel cycle was calculated. The front end of the cycle parameter are FF requirements, enrichment value requirements, depleted uranium amount, conversion requirements and natural uranium requirements. The back-end component is Spent Fuel (SF), Actinide Inventory (AI) and Fission Product (FP) radioisotopes.

scholarly journals Partitioning and transmutation contribution of MYRRHA to an EU strategy for HLW management and main achievements of MYRRHA related FP7 and H2020 projects: MYRTE, MARISA, MAXSIMA, SEARCH, MAX, FREYA, ARCAS

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Hamid Aït Abderrahim ◽  
Peter Baeten ◽  
Alain Sneyers ◽  
Marc Schyns ◽  
Paul Schuurmans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Geological Disposal ◽  
Deep Geological Disposal ◽  
Partitioning And Transmutation

Today, nuclear power produces 11% of the world's electricity. Nuclear power plants produce virtually no greenhouse gases or air pollutants during their operation. Emissions over their entire life cycle are very low. Nuclear energy's potential is essential to achieving a deeply decarbonized energy future in many regions of the world as of today and for decades to come, the main value of nuclear energy lies in its potential contribution to decarbonizing the power sector. Nuclear energy's future role, however, is highly uncertain for several reasons: chiefly, escalating costs and, the persistence of historical challenges such as spent fuel and radioactive waste management. Advanced nuclear fuel recycling technologies can enable full use of natural energy resources while minimizing proliferation concerns as well as the volume and longevity of nuclear waste. Partitioning and Transmutation (P&T) has been pointed out in numerous studies as the strategy that can relax constraints on geological disposal, e.g. by reducing the waste radiotoxicity and the footprint of the underground facility. Therefore, a special effort has been made to investigate the potential role of P&T and the related options for waste management all along the fuel cycle. Transmutation based on critical or sub-critical fast spectrum transmuters should be evaluated in order to assess its technical and economic feasibility and capacity, which could ease deep geological disposal implementation.

Soil liquefaction in Tokyo Bay area due to the 2011 Tohoku (Japan) earthquake

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolando Orense ◽  
Suguru Yamada ◽  
Masahide Otsubo
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ground Deformation ◽  
Soil Liquefaction ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Tokyo Bay ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Damage Investigation ◽  
Extensive Damage

A devastating earthquake hit the Tohoku and Kanto regions of Japan on 11 March 2011, causing extensive damage to life and property as a result of a large-scale tsunami and damage to nuclear power plants. Although located about 400 km away from the epicentre, many residential and commercial buildings and lifeline facilities in Tokyo Bay area suffered extensive damage due to soil liquefaction and associated ground deformation. This paper discusses the results of the damage investigation conducted in the area after the earthquake, with emphasis on liquefaction-induced damage to buildings, roads, lifelines and other infrastructure. In addition, the performance of ground improved by various remediation techniques is discussed. Finally, lessons learned from the event are summarised.

scholarly journals The Fuel Cycle Implications of Nuclear Process Heat

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 6073
Author(s):  
Aiden Peakman ◽  
Robert Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Industrial Process ◽  
Electricity Production ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Decay Heat ◽  
Nuclear Plants ◽  
Process Heat

International and UK fuel cycle scenario analyses performed to date have focused on nuclear plants producing electricity without considering in detail the other potential drivers for nuclear power, such as industrial process heat. Part of the reason behind the restricted applications of nuclear power is because the assumptions behind the future scenario are not fully captured, for example how big are demands from different sectors? Here we present a means to fully capture the potential opportunities for nuclear power using Sankey diagrams and then, using this information, consider for the first time in the UK the fuel cycle implications of decarbonising industrial heat demand in the year 2050 with nuclear power using the ORION fuel cycle code to study attributes related to spent fuel, uranium demand and decay heat from the spent fuel. We show that even in high industrial energy demand scenarios, the sensitivity of spent fuel masses and decay heat to the types of reactor deployed is relatively small compared to the greater fuel cycle demands from large-scale deployment of nuclear plants for electricity production. However, the sensitivity of spent fuel volumes depends heavily on the extent to which High Temperature Reactor and Light Water Reactor systems operating on a once-through cycle are deployed.

Design of 500 MWe Metal Fuel Demonstration Fast Reactor

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chellapandi Perumal ◽  
V. Balasubramaniyan ◽  
P. Puthiyavinayagam ◽  
Raghupathy Sundararajan ◽  
Madhusoodanan Kanakkil ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Natural Uranium ◽  
Industrial Scale ◽  
Fast Breeder Reactor ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Metal Fuel ◽  
Water Reactors ◽  
Breeder Reactors

Indian nuclear power programme is being implemented in three stages taking in to consideration limited uranium resources and vast thorium resources in the country. The first stage consists of investing natural uranium in Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR). This stage has the potential of 10 GWe. The second stage involves large scale deployment of Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR) with co-located fuel cycle facilities to utilize the plutonium and depleted uranium extracted from the PHWR spent fuel. This stage has a potential of about 300 GWe. In the third stage, effective utilization of the vast thorium resources is planned. Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) instituted in 1971 at Kalpakkam, is involved in the mission of developing the technology of FBR. A host of multidisciplinary laboratories are established in the centre around the central facility of the 40 MWt Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR). Presently, the construction of indigenously designed MOX fueled 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) that started in 2003 is in advanced stage and commissioning activities are underway. The design of PFBR incorporates several state-of-art features and is foreseen as an industrial scale techno-economic viability demonstrator for the FBR program. Beyond PFBR, the proposal is to build one twin unit having two reactors, with each of improved design compared to PFBR, to be commissioned by 2025. Subsequently, towards rapid realization of nuclear power, the department is planning a series of metal fueled FBRs starting with a 500 MWe Metal fuel Demonstration Fast Breeder Reactor (MDFR-500) to be followed by industrial scale 1000 MWe metal fueled reactors. The paper discusses in detail the above aspects and highlights the activities carried out towards designing MDFR.

Pembelajaran Kecelakaan Nuklir Fukushima bagi Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-17
Author(s):  
Reno Alamsyah
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Nuclear Accident ◽  
Fukushima Nuclear Accident ◽  
Safety Requirement

The Fukushima nuclear accident that occurred a decade ago has been considered a major accident. In this decade period, various important aspects of this accident were considered well-established for learning to improve nuclear safety infrastructure and prevent similar major accidents. The learning is very relevant for Indonesia, which is considered as an embarking country. Thus, this paper aims to assess the lessons that have been and can be learned by Indonesia from the nuclear accident. This study applies an analytical, descriptive and qualitative methodology using secondary data. In the first step, the important aspects of safety in the accident were identified applying the IAEA general safety requirement standards. The next step is the identification of relevant topics for each of these aspects in order to detail the lessons learned through an analysis of existing laws and regulations and international standards. This paper concludes that Indonesia has learned the lessons from the Fukushima nuclear accident in the aspects of international agreements, regulatory principles, and in accident prevention and mitigation. However, Indonesia still needs significant upgrading in the aspect’s leadership for safety and improvements in all these aspects. If a national decision has been made to build nuclear power plant, then these upgrading and improvements must be made to prevent a large-scale nuclear accident as happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plants.

What can be learned from the French partial nuclear shutdown of 2016?

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-19
Author(s):  
Jacques Percebois ◽  
Stanislas Pommeret
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Nuclear Power Plants ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Wholesale Price ◽  
Renewable Energies ◽  
Electricity Storage ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Storage Facilities

The penetration of intermittent renewable energies in the electricity mixes impact the wholesale price. In the absence of electricity storing capacities at reasonable costs, the back-up of the intermittent renewable energies is ensured by fossil or nuclear power plants. In 2016 the French Nuclear Safety Authority has ordered the shutdown of a large part of nuclear units for safety reasons. This paper analyses the impact of such a decision both on the evolution of the whole-sale price of electricity and on the French commercial balance. Although the resulting mix from the partial shutdown of the nuclear power plants was able to produce the electrical energy consumed, it was unable to keep up with demand. This has resulted in a very sharp increase in the price of electricity on the spot market and in massive electricity imports at peak times. Moreover the carbon electricity footprint produced in France is much lower than the one pro-duced by its neighbors. Consequently, the nuclear partial shutdown has a negative climatic impact resulting in a deterioration of the citizen welfare. Thus, the French experience of 2016 teaches us that in the absence of electricity storage facilities, there is no point in trying to re-duce the share of nuclear and fossil fuels in the electricity mix. If the policymakers want to do so, they must ensure that massive electricity storage facilities are present and promote electrici-ty demand flexibility on a large scale. This study highlights also the divergence that can exist between the interest of the nuclear producer (higher revenues) and the collective interest (lower welfare and negative impact on the trade balance).

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