In an editorial from the August 16, 2009 The News-Star, Professor Emeritus Ron Thompson opines on the value of nuclear energy to meet an increasing global appetite for energy:

Global energy demands are increasing exponentially. Burning more fossil fuel is not a viable solution. An inescapable fact of burning fossil fuels is that for every 12 pounds of carbon burned, 44 pounds of carbon dioxide are produced. Another inescapable fact is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing exponentially since the mid-1800s. It is possible that man’s activities can change the atmospheric conditions of the entire planet.

And while he notes how “nuclear reactors now have many successful years of operation and have a proven safety record,” his point is that the current “challenge we face today is what to do with the used fuel after it is removed from a reactor.”

In Thompson’s opinion, “the best solution is to separate the fuel and waste through a reprocessing cycle. The used fuel from a reactor contains about 5 percent radioactive waste and 95 percent nuclear fuel. The most dangerous radioactive wastes with the highest specific activity are short lived and decay to stable elements. Longer lived radionuclides can be transmuted into shorter lived isotopes.”

Read the full piece, “Nuclear fuel reprocessing: the benefits” here.

For more information on AREVA’s recycling efforts and its Back-End Division, click here.

Cooling Pool at AREVA's La Hague Recycling Facility

Power Engineering’s most recent issue included a great piece on the need to rethink the situation for recycling nuclear fuel in the United States.

The article by Senior Editor Nancy Spring points out the key benefits that come from recycling used nuclear fuel. “In ballpark figures, it takes around 30 metric tons of fuel each year to power a 1,000 MW nuclear power plant. That creates 20 tons of waste. Because 96 percent of each fuel assembly is re-useable, with recycling the volume of waste is reduced by a factor of five. Radiotoxicity is reduced by a factor of 10 because the lower the volume of waste, the lower its toxicity. Plus, plutonium is removed from the final waste stream.”

Spring also notes how AREVA “operates the largest nuclear fuel reprocessing/recycling plant in the world. At the La Hague facility in northwest France, spent fuel from 90 to 100 nuclear reactors can be recycled each year, separated into uranium, plutonium and fission products, each one bound for the next use or final storage,” which is why she recently went to interview AREVA’s Remi Coulon.

As the director of the back-end sector, strategy and international projects, he answered some tough questions about the future of nuclear energy and recycling in the United States. “As you see, this won’t happen overnight, but we are honestly convinced that this is a sustainable path worth pursuing. Under appropriate conditions, the industry believes it is possible to privately finance such a project with the right guarantees. This project will fuel the economy for decades with recycled fuel, while contributing to solving a long-lasting national commitment regarding nuclear waste,” Coulon said.

For the complete article and interview, check out Power Engineering.

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.

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

Today we’d like to highlight a thought-provoking question about recycling that was asked recently on the AREVA North America blog.

Randal Leavitt asked:

Recycling fission fuel is better than not recycling, but there are other approaches that are better still. My preferred technology is the liquid fluoride thorium reactor. How do we shift the nuclear industry over to this technology?

Randal,
We definitely agree that recycling used fuel is much better than “throwing it away” (i.e: direct disposal). The ability to shift the nuclear industry to a new technology is really something that is determined by the success of three conditions:
1. It must be proven and demonstrated at large industrial scale
2. It must be economically justified as compared to other alternatives
3. It must be licensed by the appropriate nuclear regulatory authorities

Large scale deployment of new technology requires – as soon as the principles are reasonably well stabilized and enough data from R&D is available – the preparation of a thorough and credible business case to justify the large investments needed to develop it.

To demonstrate that a new technology is fully proven and obtain the final license, one has to go through a lengthy piloting process. This involves designing, building and operating a series of “pilot models” of progressively increasing scale. A first model is developed to evaluate and understand the basic performance of the new technology, and it takes several years to test it rigorously. This first step is followed by incremental increases in the scale and the capacity of the models, (generally two further steps) to reach full commercial production size. The final model is considered as pre-industrial and is used to demonstrate the full range of safety, security and reliability requirements. Today nuclear reactors fueled with thorium have not yet been shown to meet the three conditions.

On Thursday, the Tennessee Valley Authority signed a letter of intent agreeing to evaluate using mixed-oxide (MOX) recycled fuel in two or more of their nuclear reactors. This is a positive step for Shaw AREVA MOX Services LLC, which is currently constructing the MOX Fuel fabrication Facility in South Carolina. When operational, it will recycle excess weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel for nuclear power plants, providing clean, carbon-free nuclear energy–contributing to the reduction in nuclear weapons stockpiles worldwide.

Construction of the facility has been going successfully since it started in 2007. Already 263,000 square feet of office space has been completed, with 78,000 currently under construction, not to mention over one million safe work hours already logged. The facility should open in 2016, and when it’s up and running it will be turning 3.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel each year, which we hope to supply to many customers–including TVA. We’re proud to be working with the Shaw Group on this important endeavor for nuclear energy and nonproliferation in support of U.S. energy and security needs.

A link to AREVA’s press release can be found here.

To check out more information on the project, go to the MOX Project website.

Clean Skies is a site for discussion and debate over energy and environmental policy in the U.S., including in-depth video news of important issues. As nuclear energy is a leading CO2-free energy source, the network has focused some recent pieces on key aspects of nuclear energy.

In a report from July 1^st, Clean Skies News talks about the success that France has had with nuclear energy, meeting approximately 80 percent of its energy needs.

http://www.cleanskies.com/videos/energy-report-7109-afternoon-edition

The following clip looks at another aspect of nuclear energy; the question of what to do with spent fuel in the U.S.  Here, the Clean Skies Team visits AREVA’s La Hague and MELOX recycling facilities for a report of the benefits of recycling technology.

http://www.cleanskies.com/videos/recycling-nuclear-waste

As a very important issue in nuclear energy right now- what to do with used fuel-we think this little video is appropriate for everyone who wants or needs to learn about recycling.  It actually explains AREVA’s process for recycling nuclear fuel for people who don’t have a PhD in nuclear engineering, while still mentioning how a closed fuel cycle has many potential energy saving benefits:

The House Committee on Science and Technology spent the morning listening to information on nuclear fuel recycling from AREVA’s Dr. Alan Hanson, Executive Vice-President of Technology and Used Fuel Management.

Some highlights include Hanson’s analysis of the main benefits and criticisms of recycling:

The main benefits associated with recycling are that it makes waste management easier, provides strategic flexibility and confidence for the long term, and saves natural resources and is able to burn plutonium, thereby reducing proliferation concerns.

• Makes waste management easier by reducing the volume of high level waste for disposal. “When such waste is vitrified, or specially-packed into a highly compact glass-like waste form for final storage, and added to the volume of compacted structural waste, the total volume necessary for final disposal is 75% less than the volume required if the used fuel is disposed directly in a repository.”

read more…

By Laura Clise

On June 3, the U.S. State Department Global Partnerships Initiative, the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator and TED hosted TED@State, New Ideas for a Better world. TED is a non-profit organization dedicated to the spread of attitude-changing, life-changing, and world-changing ideas. TED@State brought together a diverse and dynamic group of speakers, but better than any notes I could provide, you can check out the actual footage from each speaker’s presentation on the TED website (available soon) and or and read a summary of the presented material on the TED Blog.

While the event was personally of interest to me (I have a passion for international development and my best friend from business school is currently working as an Acumen Fellow for TED@State speaker, Jacqueline Novogratz), my professional reason for attending TED@State was directly linked to the ongoing global dialogue regarding development, energy, and climate change.

Social media analyst Clay Shirky talked about the impact of the shifting media landscape, something with which AREVA is already familiar through the AREVA Blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin pages. Futurist and environmentalist Stewart Brand discussed the implications of increased urbanization and also the critical role that base-load nuclear energy must contribute to our low-carbon energy future. Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz talked about facilitating bottom up entrepreneurial solutions to poverty alleviation and noted that effective solutions start from the perspective of those her organization is trying to help. This mentality is akin to the way we develop the products and services that we offer. Economist Paul Collier talked about the importance of sustainable job creation, health, and clean government in post-conflict recovery. AREVA also believes that job creation is critical to economic vitality and will be hiring more than 700 people in North America this year. Finally, data visionary Hans Rosling provided a statistical argument for global convergence and talked as well about the importance of information and data transparency. AREVA has been committed to open communication and transparency since its inception in order to lift the veil of secrecy that used to shroud the nuclear energy industry.

The TED@State speakers articulated the complex geopolitical, social, cultural, and environmental contexts in which companies like AREVA are innovating solutions that meet the energy needs of development while at the same time taking into account implications for social and environmental impact.

by Katherine Berezowskyj

After a nuclear reactor has produced base-load, CO2-free energy, there is the matter of what to do with the left-over nuclear fuel. There are currently two options for dealing with the spent or “used” fuel. First is the direct disposal in a deep geological repository. The other option, not currently used in the U.S., is to recycle the spent nuclear fuel.

Yes, it is possible to employ the same approach used to reduce the waste of aluminum cans and paper for used nuclear fuel. And just as the recycling process keeps these materials from being thrown away in a landfill, the same is possible for recycling spent nuclear fuel. Recycling allows for approximately 96% of the spent fuel to be recovered and reused as new fuel in a reactor, thereby reducing the need for new uranium fuel by 25%.

The question then becomes, does recycling generate significantly larger quantities of waste than directly disposing of the spent fuel? The answer is yes and no because it depends on the kinds of waste, whether Low or High Level Waste. The spent fuel generated after time in the reactor is highly radioactive and is considered High Level Waste (HLW). After recycling, only a small portion, 4%, contained in the nuclear spent fuel, is not recyclable. This small portion is made into a very stable glass waste form and is classified as HLW. The metal parts of the nuclear spent fuel assembly are handled similar to HLW. Low Level Waste (LLW) on the other hand, is not highly radioactive and is produced from activities during the recycling process such as gloves, tools, and protection clothes that are used to facilitate the process.

When comparing the volume of waste changes during recycling, the volume of LLW generated is equivalent to about 2% of current LLW production in the U.S. But the LLW produced does not have the same levels of radioactivity as HLW and is able to be stored in a surface or near-surface facility. HLW is much more complicated and expensive to dispose of because it is requires burial in a repository deep underground.

As far as numbers go, recycling reduces the volume of HLW by a factor of 4-5 when compared to direct disposal of HLW. Looking at the spent fuel that comes from U.S. reactors each year, it would cut the quantity of HLW from approximately 2,000 metric tons to around only 780 cubic yards. Reducing the quantity of HLW by such a large degree can significantly delay the need to build an additional repository to hold the HLW produced in the U.S. This has the potential for a very considerable positive economic impact. Also, the recycling process significantly diminishes the waste toxicity by a factor of 10.

When it is possible to reduce the volume of HLW and drastically cut the need for complicated underground storage, why take care of it any other way?