Study of design and evaluation on metal fuel recycle plant

The feasibility study on commercialized metal fuel fast reactor cycle system is being progressed in Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) and Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI). In this research, we examined the metal fuel recycling plant (reprocessing and fuel fabrication) which it dealt with the spent metal fuel from the large-scale fast breeder reactor (sodium-cooled reactor, power 1,500 MWe, burn-up 150 GWd/t, breeding ratio 1.2). The capacity of the metal fuel recycling plant was 50t-HM/y (core fuel: 39 tHM/y (contains axial blanket fuel: 10 tHML/y), radial blanket fuel: 11 tHM/y) and 200t-HM/y which is four times of that. The studied equipments were not only the electrorefining, the injection casting, et al. in the main process, but also the equipments of off-gas treatment, waste treatment, utilities, et al. in the added process to clear the whole aspect of the plant. And the rationalization of the plant was examined. As the result of the plant design, the volume of the main building (reprocessing and fuel fabrication) was 164,000m3 a floor of underground -the three floors above ground (52.5m x 101m x 31m) for 50 tHM/y plant. And the volume of the main building (reprocessing and fuel fabrication) was 450,000m3 a floor of underground-the three floors above ground (101m x 132.5m x 31m) for 200tHM/y plant. The volume of the main building of the 200tHM/y plant was 2.7 times of the 50tHM/y plant. As a result of the roughly economic evaluation of these plants, the construction cost of the plant was 153-178 billion yen for the 50tHM/year plant, and was 374-426 billion yen for 200tHM/y plant. Furthermore, the unit price taken into consideration of the construction cost and the operating cost of the metal fuel recycling plant was 0.54-0.59 million yen/kgHM for 50tHM/year plant and was to 0.34-0.37million yen/kgHM for the 200tHM/y plant. The unit price of these plants was less than 0.59million yen/kgHM, and it could attain the target value. (author)