Construction at MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina

A recent report from the National Center for Policy Analysis examines the growing demand for U.S. energy needs and the requirements that this energy comes from a renewable or carbon-free source.  The National Center for Policy Analysis finds in its report that “to meet this growing demand nuclear energy remains one of the safest and more reliable forms of energy available—it also emits no greenhouse gases…Nuclear power is reliable, sustainable, and clean.”

Reliable?
“Solar and wind require backup from coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants for day-to-day baseload power or for on-demand peaking power.  By contrast, the output from nuclear power plants can be adjusted based on user demand and to keep the electricity grid at maximum efficiency.”

Sustainable?
“An additional supply of nuclear fuel is readily available, after reprocessing, in the more-than-15,000 plutonium pits removed from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons.”*

“An even larger fuel supply can be found in spent fuel rods from existing reactors.  Thus, recycling could provide an almost unlimited supply of nuclear fuel in the United State.  Recycling spent fuel would significantly decrease the problem of nuclear waste disposal.  Reprocessing can also be a boon to local communities and create jobs.”

Clean?
Nuclear power has among the lowest CO2 emissions of all energy sources.  Paul J. Meier of the University of Wisconsin analyzed CO2 emissions from various electric power sources over their entire lifecycle…Meier found that for every gigawatt hour (one billion watt hours) of electricity generated”:
-Coal emits 1,041 tons of CO2 equivalent
-Natural gas emits 622 tons
-Solar emits 39 tons
-Hydropower emits 18 tons
And nuclear power emits only 17 tons of CO2.

Check out the entire report, Nuclear Power and the U.S. Energy Future.

*(AREVA is a partner in the construction of this plant, the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, currently being built in South Carolina to turn these warheads into fuel for a reliable power supply.)

Rob Pavey of The Augusta Chronicle coined the project “a new mission for an old plant,” as the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, currently under construction by Shaw AREVA MOX Services on the Department of Energy Savannah River Site, becomes an integral part of a global effort for nuclear arms reduction, world peace, and security.

“Workers will transform 34 metric tons of plutonium taken from about 10,000 dismantled nuclear bombs into something much less sinister, in fact beneficial: fuel rods that can be sold to utilities for use in commercial nuclear reactors.”

The facility is a massive undertaking using more than 170,000 cubic yards of concrete and 35,000 ton of reinforcing steel to complete the 600,000 square-foot facility. When fully operational, the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility will be capable of turning 3.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel assemblies each year.

The Chronicle also points out how this project is a highly-regarded solution for weapons disposal. Current Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, was quoted as saying “the men and women building the MOX Facility at Savannah River Site are working day and night to advance our vital national security interests…this facility will allow us to lead by example by demonstrating our commitment to eliminating surplus weapons plutonium in a transparent and irreversible manner.”

To read the rest of the article that includes some great background on the MOX projects, check out “MOX: The Future of SRS.”

For more information on the MOX Project, check out the official site.

Visual examination of rods at AREVA's MELOX, MOX Fuel Manufacturing Facility

Here’s another great question on recycling that was submitted by Max Epstein:

I have heard the argument (including by at least one professor with a related PhD) that the benefits of reprocessing in terms of reducing volume of waste overstate the real benefits, because the reprocessed fuel comes out hotter (or ends up hotter after being run back through a reactor). Since the real constraint on storage capacity of any geologic site would be heat load, not volume of the casks, then the heat issue would be a problem if true. But obviously many experts do not seem to agree with this, which I presume means they do not agree that reprocessing and reusing fuel leads the eventual waste to be hotter. If you could help clear this up it would be much appreciated.

Answer by Gilles Clement, Vice-President of Recycling Technologies, and Dr. Alan Hanson, Executive Vice President of Technology and Used-Fuel Management:

Max,

You raise a very good point about the properties involved in used fuel storage. Heat load is indeed one of the most important elements to consider when accommodating spent fuel storage. In an underground repository, the heat load from waste packages emplaced in the galleries must be calculated in order to limit the strain on the repository structure. Such constraint may lead to leave significant open space between adjacent containers to reduce the linear heat load, which is a waste of repository capacity. .

The other point for storage consideration is the radioactive decay of the spent fuel materials and when to place these materials into a storage facility. There are two “heat load peaks” to consider, one due to the “short life” radionuclides and the other one due to the “long life” radionuclides. The short life radionuclide sees its radioactivity significantly diminished shortly, along with heat output, within decades. Waiting to store the spent fuel until this point greatly reduces the heat load to the repository. This same peak for long life atoms takes place much later, and it is practically ineffectual to wait.

When we process used fuel, we separate waste material from actually recyclable material. The waste material is composed of fission products and remaining minor actinides which are vitrified. Such packages generate much less long-term heat because the “major” actinides i.e: plutonium and uranium have been removed for recycling. Consequently vitrified waste packages can be stored much closer, thus maximizing the use of the very expensive repository space.

What you make reference to is probably used MOX fuel. MOX fuel is made from recycled plutonium after being unloaded from a reactor and recovered in a reprocessing plant. And you are right, this fuel comes out from the reactor hotter than the standard uranium used fuel. Used MOX fuel can itself be recycled another time, but there is a limit in the current generation of reactors (called thermal neutron reactors). If used MOX fuel is disposed directly in a repository, then the heat load constraint would inappropriately consume the repository volume. However, used MOX fuel should not be directly bound for storage in an underground repository. Used MOX fuel still contains a great amount of recoverable energy when it is recycled in a “fast neutron” technology reactor. It is a resource for the next generation of reactors which will make the best use of this energy content. Additionally, fast neutron reactors will “burn” the long-lived actinides further improving the optimization of repository volume, a very precious and costly asset.

The concrete foundation is completed at the MOX facility. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

by Jarret Adams

With the second anniversary of construction work at MOX project in South Carolina, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a press release announcing that it has launched some new media tools for keeping people up to speed on the project. The MOX project also has a new website.

The MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility will play an essential role in the nation’s nonproliferation efforts by converting surplus weapons-grade material into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. In effect, the MOX project will permanently eliminate this material while providing a reliable source of fuel to produce CO2-free electricity for Americans.

“The progress made on the construction of the facility over the past two years brings us one step closer to eliminating surplus plutonium in a transparent and irreversible manner,” NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said in a press release.

It’s also great to see NNSA using new social media; click here to follow NNSA news on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

As a reminder, you can also follow AREVA Inc. on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

Yesterday, President Obama said in a BBC interview: “Without going into specifics, what I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region.”

Thus, we thought that this would be a good time to highlight AREVA’s commitment to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and our being a partner in the US Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative. As it says on the DOE’s site:

The mission of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) is to reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials located at civilian sites worldwide. GTRI helps the Department of Energy achieve its Nuclear Security Goal to prevent the acquisition of nuclear and radiological materials…Three key subprograms of GTRI –Convert, Remove, and Protect—provide a comprehensive approach to denying terrorists access to nuclear and radiological materials.

As part of this commitment to remove weapons-grade material from stockpiles, AREVA has partnered with the Shaw Group to build the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This facility when complete with convert the weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for use in commercial nuclear power plants. This $4.9 billion project now under construction employs some 1,000 workers and is being built for DOE.

AREVA MOX Facility Under Construction - Aiken, South Carolina

by Jarret Adams

The MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction in South Carolina serves several important goals: It provides a way to remove weapons-grade material from the nation’s military stockpiles. At the same time, the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel produced by the facility will help generate reliable, emission-free electricity for Americans.

The construction project led by Shaw AREVA MOX Services (MOX Services) has been making excellent progress over the past year and the facility is beginning to take shape. The facility is expected to begin delivering MOX fuel in 2017, and the project is on track to do just that.

However, some antinuclear groups have been spreading misinformation about the MOX Project. Conversion of weapons-grade material into MOX fuel is one of the best methods for making this material unusable for military purposes. Based on President Obama’s desire to reduce our stockpiles of this material, demand for facilities such as the MOX Project, are set to increase not decrease.

It is illogical to oppose nuclear weapons and also oppose programs, such as the MOX facility, that help dispose of nuclear weapons.

Simply put, converting weapons-grade material into fuel to generate electricity makes the nation safer. (In a similar initiative, converted Russian weapons material has been quietly supplying half of our nation’s nuclear plant fuel for years and is making the world a safer place.)

Despite what opponents of the MOX Project would like to believe, the project continues to have support of the U.S. government and the industry. MOX Services is still in negotiations with several utilities, including Duke Energy, and is confident it will have customers for the plant output well before 2017.

Opponents of the project also have characterized the experience with the lead test assemblies (LTAs) as a “failure.” Also untrue. The LTAs performed well during the first two cycles in the reactors. After the second cycle, inspectors noticed that they grew slightly more than what had been established in pre-set criteria. At no time did the MOX assemblies present a safety hazard.

The adjustments to future MOX fuel assemblies will be a minor one, according AREVA fuel experts, and can be demonstrated on uranium fuel. Our experts also believe that no repeat of the MOX LTA tests will be required.

As we have mentioned previously, AREVA has decades of experience in the production of MOX fuel at its MELOX facility in France. AREVA has many satisfied MOX fuel customers and is even winning new ones.

by Jarret Adams and Gilles Clement

Rob Inglis at The New Republic’s Energy and Environment blog, among others, suggested recently that recycling nuclear fuel is too costly to pursue in the United States and that closing the fuel cycle would have little effect on the demand for repository space. We at AREVA believe that recycling can make economic sense and can significantly reduce the volume and toxicity of the waste that must be emplaced in a permanent repository.

1. Recycling Is Not Too Costly

In 2006, the Boston Consulting Group performed a study with input from AREVA concluding that with uranium at $31/lb of U3O8 ($80/kg) the cost of recycling was roughly equivalent to that of direct disposal, assuming repository costs of $700/kg of nuclear material for disposal.

This study was based on the actual figures from existing commercial used fuel recycling plants in Europe. Whereas, previous studies were based upon assumptions or data derived from nuclear weapons complex operation which are not applicable. The cost of recycling is offset by the sale of recycled fuel, specifically mixed oxide (MOX) fuel and fuel made of reprocessed uranium. In addition, much less repository space is required, about one-fourth to one-fifth of the volume remains after recycling.

Today, the long-term price of uranium is about $60/lb of U3O8 and the expected cost of Yucca Mountain repository is about 900$/kg of material for disposal. Hence, recycling makes even more economical sense today, and trend will likely not reverse as worldwide uranium demand grows and uncertainties regarding repository costs increase.

2. Recycling Does Reduce the Need for Additional Repository Space

Recycling does not eliminate the need for a final repository. But it does indeed offer the potential to reduce significantly the volume of waste for disposal. As we have pointed out several times here, recycling can reduce the volume by a factor of at least four and toxicity by a factor or 10.

Used MOX fuel will not be sent for direct disposal. A sustainable recycling strategy is based on recycling all used fuel, including MOX fuel. The recovered material will be recycled in the current or next generation of reactors. This is why recycling reduces the demand on repository space. Recycling nuclear fuel can postpone perhaps indefinitely the need for additional repositories.

Heat is a driving issue for waste storage, but the vitrified waste (the advanced waste packaging that contains the recycling byproducts) can be stored safely until it is ready for disposal. Because all useable material has been removed for recycling, the remaining material requires only limited safeguards. The durability of vitrified glass logs in the repository containers is that of natural volcanic obsidian rock (which is at least 300,000 years).

Fuel for Thought:
Sustaining the Nuclear Revival with a Sustainable Fuel Cycle

Editorial Column by Jacques Besnainou, President, AREVA Inc.

As we work toward the revival of nuclear energy in the United States, we are addressing some of the key challenges of our time. We are helping to meet the nation’s growing energy needs while preventing the emissions of additional greenhouse gases.

Companies in the United States are considering the construction of more than 30 new nuclear power reactors, and worldwide, new commercial reactors are already under construction, including four AREVA Generation III+ EPR™ reactors in Finland, France and China. But for nuclear energy to continue this revival, we must move toward a more sustainable fuel cycle, which in practical terms means broad use of recycling. Recycling nuclear fuel enables us to conserve natural resources and helps us to effectively manage used fuel.

Clearly, the nuclear waste issue is one of the main concerns the public has with generating electricity with nuclear energy. But we recycle paper, plastic, aluminum-why not nuclear materials? Recycling is indeed an ecological necessity in modern societies. Why do some regard the notion of nuclear recycling with such suspicion? France and other nuclear energy countries have proven that they can recycle safely and efficiently and have been doing so for decades. AREVA is justifiably proud of its facilities near Cherbourg and Avignon where much of this work takes place.

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