Study on sustainable regional nuclear fuel cycle framework from nuclear non-proliferation viewpoint

The need of nuclear energy deployment, which would probably be deaccelerated by the Fukushima NPP accident in the mean time, may be sustained in the long-term views, countering global climate changes and providing energy security/independence. It results in the increasing needs of nuclear fuel cycle services. In global nuclear energy expansion, many emerging countries in utilization of nuclear energy would like to have a reliable system of fresh fuel supply, free of any political disruptions to fuel their nuclear reactors. At the same time, the ability to provide assurance that the spent fuel could be managed properly is equally important. An international cooperative system among regional countries involving small emerging countries, which includes services for fresh fuel supply, spent fuel take-back/take-away, interim storage, reprocessing, and possibly spent fuel/HLW repository disposal, may be able to contribute to a) reduction of risks on so-called 3S, safety, safeguards and security, b) enhancement of economic rationality, c) promotion of confidence-building, and d) prevention to the occurrence of unfair business such as government-to-government transaction based on cradle-to-grave service that nuclear weapon state's privilege enables. It is essential to study a concept to build up rational, realistic and sustainable international/regional systems. A reliable framework of such a regional system, where the fuel-cycle services could be provided without discrimination, and meet the international 3S requirements is proposed by the University of Tokyo. This paper will introduce the outline of our study. (author)