Rod,
The note that says we will have an answer in a week was supposed to have been directed to Robert Hargreaves regarding his presentation on recycling.
Regarding the calculations on EROI, I was sort of kidding when I said we have a team of scientists working on it. Hopefully, I can persuade someone take this project on, but there is no timetable...

Jarrett - just wanted to let you know I am still paying attention and keeping track. By my calendar it is now "next week" if looking from the perspective of May 21.

Mary Beth - That is great news. Engineers and technologists can be good communicators - they just have to want to develop that skill set. I just hope they recognize that words and web sites do not have to be perfect - timeliness is also important measures of effectiveness. With today's software tools, rolling out a new blog should take a weekend at most - even allowing time for some pretty detailed design work.

please email wayne at caribou cogen at the above address can you help with a 50 to 100kw woodchip to gasification cogen and a larger unit we are in central BC CANADA with a pine beetle kill epidemic any info apprec thanx wayne

Jarret - how are those EROI calculations coming?

Thought you might also be interested in a rumor I picked up at the Nuclear Energy Assembly. Within a month or so, there should be a new pro-nuclear blog emanating out of Charlotte, NC produced by some excited young nuclear professionals. (They mentioned that they had tried to contact you - I recommend responding to their inquiries.)

Just wanted to let you know that we're still working on your question and we'll have some answers for you next week... sorry about the delay!

Rod -- I had the exciting opportunity to meet with some the young nuclear professionals out of AREVA Charlotte at the North American Young Generation in Nuclear conference over the past few days. It was a great opportunity for us to meet and to discuss advocacy strategies, which we hope to be collaborating on and rolling out in the next few months--stay tuned!

It is my understanding that used MOX fuel can not be recycled with current technology used by Areva in France.

(a) is this correct?

(b) is the France reprocessing flow chart in my presentation essentially correct?

http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/publi...

http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/publi...

Robert--

No, spent MOX fuel can be recycled at Areva's La Hague facility using existing technology. In fact several such assemblies have been recycled to verify that it can be done.  However, EdF, the main customer for recycling services, has elected to store spent MOX fuel for now to reserve it for recycling into fast reactors when they become available later in this century. Spent MOX fuel can be recycled more efficiently in fast reactors than in LWRs.

Rod,

You pose some very interesting questions.

Regarding the transparency of the MOX fuel market, it is important to note that there is no MOX fuel market as such. Customers purchase MOX fuel as part of an agreement to recycle their used fuel. MOX fuel is integral to recycling and vice versa. Because MOX fuel is not a standalone product, it is usually not possible to talk about the price for MOX fuel alone.

There are however some exceptions: we will for example sell MOX fuel from the MOX Project that we are building in South Carolina in partnership with the Shaw Group (to recycle nuclear weapons material). In such instances, the prices for MOX fuel are broadly consistent with those for uranium fuel.

It is important to note that AREVA’s recycling business is just that – a business. Our customers choose to recycle their used fuel and reuse it as MOX fuel because this makes sense for them. And we offer these services because they make business sense for us.

We have discussed the benefits of recycling previously on the blog [link], including reducing the volume required in a repository (and hence the disposal cost), creating a much more durable waste form (vitrified glass logs) with no more IAEA safeguard obligations, reducing the need to mine and enrich new uranium. When you include all of these factors, from an economic perspective, recycling is competitive with the once-through fuel cycle and, from the sustainability perspective, we believe it is much better.

As a far as the EROI calculations you requested, we have a team of scientists working on those calculations as we speak …


Thanks,
Jarret

As a fission fan and longtime atomic advocate, I often discuss used fuel recycling efforts. One of the weak links in my effort is the lack of good market information about the cost of various fuel options. Many of the transactions in this business are shrouded in secrecy; unless I am missing something there is no equivalent to the daily world oil price updates that the competition has.

Is there any way to help alleviated this data gap without revealing business sensitive information?

One other piece of information that might be very useful would be an Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) computation that compares MOX to other low/zero emission energy options like LEU, wind, solar and geothermal.

Keep up the good work with your open access efforts.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights