Economics Assessments of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Scenarios: Validation of TR_EVOL Code

Economic competitiveness is one of the main issues for the development of sustainable nuclear energy, since nuclear fuel cycle choices such as energy policies, fuel diversity, security of supply and associated social and environmental effects could impact the cost of nuclear energy. In this context, CIEMAT has upgraded the fuel cycle code TR_EVOL to include a new module capable of making economic assessments of nuclear fuel cycle scenarios. The aim of this module is the estimation of the levelized cost of electricity, although other indicators can also be estimated, such as the generation cost per technology type, investment profiles, final disposal gallery length, etc. TR_EVOL uses a series of cost sources strictly related to the generation cost for a nuclear power plant: Investment cost, Fuel cost, Operation and Management cost, and Decommissioning, Dismantling and Disposal costs (waste management costs). This work has been focused in the validation of the TR_EVOL economic module. This validation has been carried out on the one hand by making use of the ARCAS EU project and its economic assessments for advanced reactors. The Investment cost, the Fuel cost and the O and M costs were assessed and validated using these data (differences smaller than 1%, 3% and 2%, respectively, between ARCAS and TR_EVOL). On the other hand, for the waste management cost, a specific validation was required due to its high sensitivity to the different fuel cycle options. Published data for the final disposal provided by institutions responsible of nuclear waste management were used for this purpose. The assessment showed differences smaller than 7% in case of open cycle scenarios and smaller than 12% for partially closed cycles. These results show that the TR-EVOL economic module has been successfully validated, demonstrating the capability of proper economic predictions. (authors)