Strategy for spent fuel management in a small nuclear power programme

The strategy of spent fuel management of the Olkiluoto power plants (2x710 MW(e)) owned by Teollisuuden Voima Oy is presented. The reference plan comprises intermediate storage of spent fuel at the power plant site for 40 years and final disposal of spent fuel assemblies in Finnish crystalline bedrock. Cost analysis shows that this solution increases the price of electricity by about 10% (FIM 0.012/kW·h, equal to US $0.003/kW·h). In the future, alternatives to the reference plan could be reprocessing with, or without, the responsibility of taking back the wastes and transferring the spent fuel irretrievably abroad into an international repository. An alternative solution should not make the spent fuel management technically more complicated than the reference plan and the price level should be competitive with that of the reference plan. (author). 4 refs, 6 figs, 2 tabs