Disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste: design and technical/economic analysis

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:60417

Roglans-Ribas, J

An economic model for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle was developed for a once-through cycle, a standard reprocessing cycle, and a reprocessing cycle with fractionation of Cs and St. A parametric thermal analysis was performed for waste emplaced in five different geologic formations: salt, granite, basalt, shallow tuff, and deep tuff. The results of the thermal analysis, in the form of maximum permissible loadings, were incorporated into the economic model. The economic analysis was performed for a variety of situations in order to compare the five possible repository host rocks, the three different back end cycles, and different locations of the Monitored Retrievable Storage Facility (MRS). The maximum permissible thermal loadings in granite and tuff were relatively high, whereas for basalt the thermal loadings are very restricted for both spent fuel and reprocessed waste and for salt the loadings are very restricted for spent fuel only. A repository in basalt always resulted in higher costs than in any other rock; the other repository media yield comparable costs, except in the case of spent fuel disposal in salt, where the costs are higher. Co-location of the MRS with the repository results in a lower system cost. The regular reprocessing cycle present the lower storage plus disposal costs among the three cycles studied, and disposal of spent fuel has the highest costs associated. The model proved to be very sensitive to variations of the discount rate, the storage facility capital cost, and the delay of repository backfilling after waste emplacement. Lower waste storage plus disposal costs can be obtained by delaying disposal in the fractionation waste cycle in any rock or disposal of any waste form in basalt. In the other cases, aging the waste before disposal does not reduce, in general, the total cost.

• Research Organization: Iowa State Univ. of Science and Technology, Ames, IA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 60417
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
BASALT
CESIUM
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COST
DEPTH
DESIGN
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
GRANITES
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
LOADING RATE
MONITORED RETRIEVABLE STORAGE
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
SALT DEPOSITS
SITE SELECTION
SPENT FUELS
STORAGE FACILITIES
STRONTIUM
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
TUFF
Yucca Mountain Project