National strategy for research reactor spent fuel management: Mexico

Full text: ININ has recently implemented a project for the design of a dry storage cask and a study of the possibility of constructing a smaller pool, with the specific objective of storing the fuel from the research reactor. One of these options will be utilized for interim storage. If a new wet storage facility is selected, the pool would be smaller than the original reactor pool, in order to reduce costs for operation and maintenance. For the cask design, engineers of ININ are taking advantage of the dual purpose cask being developed in the TC Regional Project RLA/4/018 that can be used also for the TRIGA fuel. Since the US Foreign Research Reactor Acceptance Programme has been extended, an attractive option is to send back the fuel to the USA, since all TRIGA fuel qualifies for this programme. Due to the fact that the HEU fuel should be sent back to the USA, the Mexican authorities must first negotiate replacement of the existing HEU fuel in the reactor core with fresh LEU fuel. The negotiations are necessary because the cost of TRIGA type fuel elements has considerably increased during the past years, making the cost to convert the complete reactor core high. Reprocessing of the spent fuel of the ININ research reactor is not being considered as an option, as TRIGA spent fuel reprocessing has only been demonstrated on a laboratory scale and no commercial service is currently available. As in other countries, the decision on TRIGA spent fuel disposal will be tied to the plans for spent fuel disposal of the nuclear power plants operating in the country. (author)