An acceptable long-term solution for used (spent) fuel from nuclear power reactors has evaded all countries engaged in the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. Furthermore, many countries are trying to develop interim storage solutions that address the shortage of storage in the spent fuel cooling pools at reactors. The United States has a particularly acute problem due to its adherence to an open fuel...

The development of techniques for the accurate quantification of the plutonium content in spent nuclear fuel would provide significant advances for shipper/receiver differences and for input accountability at reprocessing facilities. Several techniques have been studied previously for achieving this goal but these have met with limited success. Due to the radioactive nature of spent fuel, decay...

Commercial nuclear reactors and storage facilities for their spent fuel contain large amounts of radioactive material, and are not designed to resist attack. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined, however, that these facilities require only a light defense. This paper shows, without disclosing any sensitive information, that reactors and spent-fuelstorage facilities have vul...

Pyrochemical processes are under development at Argonne National Laboratory for recovery of transuranium (TRU) elements from light water reactor spent fuel. The recovered TRU elements will be used as fuel in the integral fast reactor (IFR). Burning these long-lived isotopes for electrical power generation has the additional benefit of reducing the burden on the geological repository for their l...

This study compares the proliferation resistance of DUPIC (Direct Use of Spent PWR Fuel in CANDU) fuel cycle with other fuel cycle cases. The other fuel cycles considered in this study are PWR of once-through mode (PWR-OT), PWR of reprocessing mode (PWR-MOX), in which spent PWR fuel is reprocessed and recovered plutonium is used for making MOX (Mixed Oxide), CANDU with once-through mode (CANDU-...

It is generally recognized that the spent fuel discharged from nuclear power plants constitutes the main contribution to nuclear waste. The management of spent fuel from nuclear power plants differs depending on the perspectives and scenarios posed by the countries directly concerned. However, there is a general consensus on the need for a deep geological repository and a reduction in the burde...

The factors influencing the level of U-232 contamination in U-233 are examined for heavy-water-moderated, light-water-moderated and liquid-metal cooled fast breeder reactors fueled with natural or low-enriched uranium and containing thorium mixed with the uranium or in separate target channels. U-232 decays with a 69-year half-life through 1.9-year half-life Th-228 to Tl-208, which emits a 2.6 ...

The use of a Lead Slowing-Down Spectrometer (LSDS) is considered as a possible option for nondestructive assay of fissile material in used (spent) nuclear fuel. The primary objective is to quantify the remaining fissile content of the fuel consisting mainly of Pu and U. The characterization of spent fuel is particularly important for nuclear safeguards and for determining the fuel burn-up level...

Spent fuel transportation and storage cask designs based on a burnup credit approach must consider issues that are not relevant in casks designed under a fresh-fuel loading assumption. For example, the spent fuel composition must be adequately characterized and the criticality analysis model can be complicated by the need to consider axial burnup variations. Parametric analyses are needed to ch...

This paper describes a methodology to evaluate the radiological risk of postulated accident scenarios during the decommissioning phase of commercial nuclear power plants. The fuel damage scenarios include those initiated while the reactor is permanently shut down and the spent fuel is initially located in the reactor pressure vessel and successively moved in the spent fuel storage pool. This pa...