Fuel cycle economic study using MOX fuel in a BWR reactor
Conference
·
OSTI ID:268076
- Inst. Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Salazar (Mexico). Gerencia de Sistemas Nucleares
MOX fuel utilization involves the reprocessing of spent fuel for recovery of unburned U-235 and fissile plutonium, which can then be used in light water reactors as a fuel assembly. In the current work a comparison of the fuel cycle cost is carried out considering two different scenarios for a BWR. The former scenario comprises an open fuel cycle, which means reprocessing is not considered. The latter scenario comprises reprocessing of spent fuel and utilization of MOX fuel. The reactor analyzed has an electric power of 654 MWe, a capacity factor of 70% and has worked in annual cycles. After four cycles, the plutonium inventory in the spent fuel stored inside the reactor pools is enough to consider a fuel reload using MOX fuel obtained by reprocessing this spent fuel or by using it as a plutonium credit. Reload for the fifth cycle consists of 112 fuel assemblies with a U-235 average enrichment of 3.52 w/o for a cycle length planned of 18 months. As a first scheme of analysis, the fuel cycle is computed without considering reprocessing. The second scenario comprises MOX fuel utilization in 30% of the reload, with a plutonium fissile average enrichment of 6.05 w/o. The cycle cost for this option is computed and a comparison between these scenarios is carried out. The analysis of fuel cycle costs for both scenarios show MOX utilization is a very suitable option and is competitive from the economical point of view.
- OSTI ID:
- 268076
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960306--; ISBN 0-7918-1226-X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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