Significance of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in the 21st Century
The combined effects of increasing industrialization around the world, the threat of global climate change, and decreasing availability of 'clean' fossil fuels will make the development of alternative energy sources more important in the coming decades. For fission-based nuclear power to contribute significantly to future energy supplies, it will be essential to maintain the improvements that have been made in plant operational efficiency, to license geological repositories for waste disposal, and to consider again the issue of recycling of spent nuclear fuels to recover its fuel value and to reduce the long-term radiotoxicity of the wastes. In this chapter, we present an overview of the nuclear fuel cycle from spent fuel recycling through the repository performance in the context of its importance to energy production in the 21st Century.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 894857
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-45672
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
AVAILABILITY
CLIMATIC CHANGE
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY SOURCES
ENERGY SUPPLIES
FOSSIL FUELS
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEAR POWER
PERFORMANCE
PRODUCTION
RECYCLING
SPENT FUELS
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTES
energy
environmental impact
irradiated fuel
nuclear fuel cycle
nuclear power
partitioning and transmutation
spent fuel