Economical ways for thorium-based fuel utilization in light water reactors

Our analyses has shown that the homogeneous (Th+U)O2 has not shown any economical advantage over UO2 the fuel when current fuel management strategies are used. Thus alternative applications of homogeneous (Th+U)O2 fuel in light water reactors (LWRs) have been investigated to enhance the economics of the thorium fuel cycle. Specifically, we have investigated 1) the recycling of U-233 as a fuel in PWRs and 2) use of homogeneous thorium-uranium fuel in small/medium sized PWRs with a 5-year cycle. The recycling method proposed here is a re-fabrication process like DUPIC, which has a special feature of compliance with the 'Spent Fuel Standard' for proliferation resistance throughout the entire fuel cycle, instead of wet reprocessing. The proposed alternatives result in far better fuel economics compared to the homogeneous thorium-uranium fuel cycle. The economics of the recycled thoria-urania and homogeneous thorium-uranium fuel in long-lived cores can be better than the economics of the uranium fuel option