Recovered uranium in CANDU: a strategic opportunity

For a utility having CANDU reactors, recycled uranium offers significant savings in fuel cycle costs, compared to either natural uranium or slightly enriched uranium. Moreover, a simple fuelling scheme can be employed, and the modest increase in burnup over natural uranium gives good confidence in fuel performance, which would be even more assured by using the CANFLEX bundle. For a country possessing pressurized water reactors and employing conventional reprocessing services, adding CANDU to the reactor mix for burning recycled uranium offers a simple cost-effective way of maximizing the benefits of reprocessing by maximizing the energy potential of the recycled uranium in the most cost-effective manner. 22 refs.; 2 tabs