Future fuel cycle development for CANDU reactors

The CANDU reactor has proven to be safe and economical and has demonstrated outstanding performance with natural uranium fuel. The use of on-paper fueling, coupled with excellent neutron economy, leads to a very flexible reactor system which can utilize a wide variety of fuels. The spectrum of fuel cycles ranges from natural uranium, through slightly enriched uranium, to plutonium and ultimately thorium fuels which offer many of the advantages of the fast breeder reactor system. CANDU can also burn the recycled uranium and/or the plutonium from fuel discharged from light water reactors. This synergistic relationship could obviate the need to re-enrich the reprocessed uranium and allow a simpler reprocessing scheme. Fuel management strategies that will permit future fuel cycles to be used in existing CANDU reactors have been identified. Evolutionary design changes will lead to an even greater flexibility, which will guarantee the continued success of the CANDU system