Plutonium Multiple Recycling In PWRs
- COGEMA, DRD, 2 rue Paul Dautier 78141 Velizy - Villacoublay Cedex (France)
- SERMA, CEA Saclay (France)
- SPRC - CEA Cadarache (France)
Reprocessing and recycling open the road to a sustainable management of nuclear materials and an environment friendly management of nuclear waste. However, long or very long term recycling implies fast neutron reactors. High burn-ups of irradiated standard UO{sub 2} fuel as well as recycling of plutonium fuel in thermal reactors lead to a 'degradation' of plutonium that means a low fissile content, which is hardly compatible with recycling in LWRs. Thus the question of plutonium management has been raised; although there are some limitations, a truly large variety of options do exist; no one of the presently selected ways of plutonium management is a dead end road. Among these various options, some are fully compatible with the existing reactors and may be considered for the mid term future; they offer a competitive management of plutonium during the transition from thermal to fast reactors. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21167857
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICAPP'02: 2002 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants, Hollywood, FL (United States), 9-13 Jun 2002; Other Information: Country of input: France
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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