Application of environmental management tool to nuclear energy policy related with environmental issues

Energy policy is addressing environmental issues and energy conservation has come to be regarded as an important element of environmental policy. Accroding to current situation, concern for environmental preservation has increased the demand for more efficient management and environmentally sound and sustainable development of nuclear energy. Also International Standardization Organization (ISO) has been in the standardization of the detail methodologies of environmental management tool in ISO 14041-44 series. In accordance with this movement, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has received much attention in industries and decision makers. Therefore, this study explained the international trend of environmental management system and validated the application of LCA to nuclear energy system and radioactive waste management. Also the controversial issues when LCA was directly applied to nuclear industires was pointed out and suggested the new concept to improve the methodologies for the calculation of radiological impact within the LCA framework. Finally, as a preliminary result, LCA of once-through fuel cycle were studied using suggested methodologies. This result could be used as the source materials for the further development of comparative assessment of nuclear and non-nuclear energy as well as decision-making of back-end fuel cycle alternative