Radioactive waste: International examination of storage and reprocessing of spent fuel

The thesis examines radioactive High Level Waste (HLW) policies in a number of developed countries with mature nuclear power programmes. A key issue in national HLW policies is whether to reprocess or store spent fuel, prior to disposal in future permanent waste repositories. Practices differ from country to country, depending on many factors including the histories of their nuclear programmes and views taken of spent fuel as a resource or waste. About 80% of the world's annual spent fuel arisings are stored with the rest reprocessed. The option of spent fuel storage storage has yet to be seriously examined in the UK. The thesis examines the international trend to storage and compares both storage and reprocessing strategies with a view to making recommendations on HLW policy in the UK. The evolution of UK government and industry policies on handling spent fuel is described and followed by a description of storage technologies, a comparison of reprocessing and storage/disposal strategies including their costs and collective doses, and an examination of the issues surrounding MOX fuel use, the possible collective dose savings from MOX fuel use, and higher fuel burnup regimes. The decision to store or reprocess is important in the UK as two thirds of UK Intermediate Level Waste and half of UK Low Level Waste are generated by reprocessing. Continued reprocessing will have implications for costs and the generation of radioactive waste streams with consequent impacts on collective dose and the environment. Continued reprocessing and expanded MOX fuel use will also have implications for increased radiation exposures, proliferation concerns, and increased size and cost of final waste repositories. Concluding chapters examine the technical feasibility of dry storing UK fuels, the estimated savings from such storage, the outlook for reprocessing in the UK, France and Japan, and synthesise the arguments in favour of the adoption of storage policies in the UK. (author)