Spent fuel treatment, storage, transport and reprocessing

The moderate development of nuclear power generation and spent fuel reprocessing compared to the early predictions increased the demands for higher storage capacities. By 1990 in Western Europe only the half of the total amount of the spent uranium fuel will be reprocessed. About 6500 t of uranium oxide fuel elements will have to be stored. For temporary storage the wet method applying storage pools has become generally accepted. The capacity of the pools can be increased using neutron absorbing frames (dense storage). Among the improved dry storage processes those using transport containers and modular shielded cells are discussed in details. French, Soviet, German and Indian experiences in reprocessing are compared. (V.N.)