INDUSTRIAL METALS, MINERALS & MINEABLE ENERGYINVESTMENT SUMMIT

IRONMONGERS’ HALL, CITY OF LONDON ● THURSDAY, 3 NOV 2011

www.ObjectiveCapitalConferences.com

Plutonium management in a nuclear renaissanceBen Koppelman – Royal Society

Plutonium management in a nuclear renaissanceBen KoppelmanSenior Policy AdviserScience Policy Centre

 

Project background‘exam question’:

1)what is the relationship between civil nuclear power and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as other security risks?

2)how make fuel cycle more proliferation resistant and secure?•Technical options?•Non-technical options

Technical focus on management of spent fuel•Recommendations to UK government•Identify best practices for nuclear programmes

Spent fuel

Managing spent fuel

Rationales for fuel cycle choice1) Technical needs 

2) Waste management considerations

3) Relative fuel cycle costs

• price of uranium• costs of enriching and preparing uranium fuel• costs of reprocessing and preparing Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel• costs of storing spent fuel• costs of geological disposal

4) Sustainability concerns

• Near term: open fuel cycle, using thermal reactors • Longer term: closed fuel cycle using fast reactors

(2040/2050 at the earliest) 

Nuclear proliferationCivil nuclear power today much less of a direct proliferation risk today

• Nuclear weapons programmes separated civil nuclear power programmes

• Nuclear power programmes under international safeguards

• Civil nuclear fuel using high burn up: ‘weapons grade’ vs ‘reactor grade’ plutonium

Nuclear securityDifficult for non-state actors to develop improvised, plutonium-based nuclear weapon

Recent attention to the security risks of separated plutonium, e.g. dispersal device

Best practice for reuseSpent fuel should be reprocessed only when there is a clear plan for its reuse. This plan should seek to:

1) Minimise the amount of separated plutonium produced and the time for which it needs to be stored.

2) Convert separated plutonium into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel as soon as it is feasible to do so

3) Identify nuclear power reactors in advance to use MOX fuel and ensure conversion into MOX fuel matches reactors’ loading schedules and fuel specifications

4) Transport plutonium as MOX fuel rather than in a separated form

Management of the UK’s plutoniumUK has world’s largest stockpile of separated plutonium •84 tonnes: UK owned (~100 tonnes once contracts completed)•28 tonnes foreign owned

Royal Society advice to Government•2007: MOX as best management route (reuse or immobilisation)•2011: Reuse stockpile in new reactors to be built in UK

• No major engineering challenges; just suitable licensing• Need a new MOX fabrication facility

• UK Government: no public subsidy for nuclear power

Future of reprocessing in the UKLessons from US debates over Yucca Mountain• Cradle to grave planning• Keep options open: contingency in case of unforeseen changes

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) responsible for the Thermal oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP)

• Current assumption is to close THORP after existing contracts• Unclear if NDA has mandate to enter into new commercial

contracts

 

  

Prospects for a nuclear renaissance

A future plutonium economy?MOX use: France, Japan (?), Switzerland (?)

Commercial reprocessing facilities: UK, France, Japan (?) Russia • India?• China?

Technological constraints: fast reactor development • Generation IV Forum: Argentina*,Brazil*, Canada, China,

EURATOM, France, Japan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, UK*, USA

Political constraints• US policy on reprocessing

Thorium fuel cycle

Natural thorium, Th-232, is not fissile but on capturing a neutron it leads to fissile U-233. •Similar to non-fissile U-238, which is transmuted to fissile Pu-239 upon capturing neutrons produced by fissile U-235

Thorium does not have a naturally occurring fissile isotope; there is no analogue of U-235.• Another fissile material, either U-235 or Pu-239, is needed to generate the neutrons to start the thorium fuel cycle.

Prospects for thorium?Similar risk as U/Pu fuel cycles:• U-235 or Pu-239 to initiate fuel cycle presupposes enrichment and reprocessing•Spent thorium fuel contains U-233 that is weapons usable

Fast reactors and accelerator driven reactor systems could be used to generate neutrons but these remain viable only in the longer term.

Technologically immature in all areas

Regulatory experience out of date

Waste management still problematic

Incentives for industry to use it