Nuclear - A resource for thousands of years (Ken Kok, ASME) USofA

ENERGY COMMITTEE – ENERGY TALKING POINTS (ETP) SERIES

ETP 4: AN ENERGY RESOURCE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS Issue: Today, the used fuel from our nuclear power reactors and the depleted uranium from the uranium enrichment process are considered waste. Both materials contain enormous amounts of potential energy which can yet be extracted to produce electric power. A single gram of uranium, when fissioned, will yield 24,000 kwh(t) of thermal energy (about 8,000 kwh(e) of electricity) in a commercial nuclear power plant. Disappointingly, with today’s oncethrough nuclear fuel cycle, we use less than 0.5% of the uranium’s potential. Are these materials a waste or a resource?

CURRENT PRACTICE The current reactor fuel cycle is a once-through process where uranium is mined, concentrated, enriched, made into enriched uranium fuel assemblies, and cycled through a reactor. The used fuel from the reactors and the depleted uranium from the enrichment process are then placed in storage until they can be transferred to a facility for permanent disposal.

The once-through nuclear fuel cycle uses less than 0.5% of the original uranium present in the fresh fuel loaded into the nuclear reactor core. The fuel is placed in the reactor core until the planned fission burn-up is achieved and then removed and placed in storage. Immediate storage is in a water filled pool for long term cooling. Later storage can be in dry air cooled containers.

The fuel in the once-through cycle for power reactors in the US is enriched. That is, it has a higher content of U235 than the natural uranium extracted from the earth. The enrichment process produces a large amount of uranium that is depleted i.e. has a lower amount of U235 than natural uranium. This depleted material is also considered to be hazardous nuclear waste.

materials are treated as hazardous nuclear waste and stored subject to permanent disposal. This waste has a total potential energy content of over 18,000,000,000,000,000 kwh(t), or 61,419 quadrillion BTU’s (or “quads”).

The original Uranium Fuel plan2 was to initiate a long term nuclear energy supply with easier-to-build water cooled reactors, then to introduce specialized reactors to use recycled fuel from these first reactors to extend the process long into the future.

In the 1970’s the plan for the spent fuel was for the DOE to take possession of the fuel and dispose of it in a permanent geological disposal facility. It was argued that reprocessing the spent fuel would lead to and support the proliferation of nuclear weapons since the plutonium in the spent fuel can be separated from the remaining fuel. This is not a valid argument. Power reactor plutonium is not desirable as a weapon material due to the distribution of plutonium isotopes in the fuel.

The once through nuclear fuel cycle is equivalent to filling your fuel tank with 20 gallons of gasoline, using 0.1 gallons and then disposing of the remaining 19.9 gallons as waste.

REVISED PRACTICE Technology exists to convert the waste into a usable fuel and the process reduces the amount of waste to be sent for permanent disposal. Reactor fuel cycles for recycling without separating the plutonium and transuranic materials have been studied for more than 30 years3. In 2005 the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) was proposed to implement the proposed fuel cycle concept.

The draft report of the Federal Government’s Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear waste disposal, issued in July 20111, states that about 65,000 metric tons of uranium in the form of used nuclear fuel is currently stored at nuclear power facilities around the US. The USDOE has about 700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium in its inventory. Both of these First Issued: 10/15/2011, Rev. 3, 5/30/2012

The recycling of the uranium and other constituents of the used fuel, including the transuranic elements, will allow the waste stream to consist of only fission products and activated fuel assembly hardware. This waste material has a half-life that averages less than 100 years. It, therefore, will require isolation for a much shorter period, about 1000 years in an 1 of 2

ENERGY COMMITTEE – ENERGY TALKING POINTS (ETP) SERIES engineered facility.

The long-lived transuranic elements will be transmuted (transformed into safe materials) since they remain in the active fuel cycle and are not present in the waste stream. In addition, the volume of the waste stream will be much less since the radioactive fission product content is a small fraction of the volume of a complete reactor fuel assembly. This greatly reduces the volume of storage space needed and allows the construction of an engineered isolation facility.

and the larger fraction which is U238.

This will increase the utilization of our mined uranium resource from 0.5% to greater than 75%.

Reprocessing and recycling will keep the most hazardous materials in the active part of the fuel cycle since they will all be recycled into new reactor fuel. It also eliminates the potential for the diversion of these materials to potential malevolent uses.

Action: The United States should immediately begin construction of a demonstration safeguarded spent fuel reprocessing facility and of a nuclear reactor designed to reduce the amount of radioactive material being stored and to extend the effective life of this valuable and limited resource. We are wasting a valuable energy resource, i.e. uranium, by throwing away (not recycling or re-using) over 99% of its potential energy and then creating unwanted and un-needed problems of storage and disposal for generations to come.

The effective amount of uranium available can be greatly extended by the design of a fuel cycle and associated reactor that can use both the U235 and the U238 contained in natural uranium mined from the earth. Rather than using only 0.5% of the uranium, advanced fuel cycles and advanced reactors will use 75% or more of the uranium. Thus, projected supplies will allow uranium to be used as a major source of energy for thousands of years making nuclear energy sustainable for the foreseeable future. SO - Is it waste or a resource?

REFERENCES: 1. Draft Report of the Blue Ribbon Commission July 2011.

2. Civilian Nuclear Power – a Report to the President, USAEC, November, 1962 3. “Coprocessing - An Evaluation of Chemical Processing Without Plutonium Separation, Meyer Pobereskin, Kenneth D. Kok, William J. Madia, Nuclear Technology, Vol. 41, Dec, 1978 CONTRIBUTORS

The technology for reprocessing and recycling of used nuclear fuel has been in use for more than 50 years. The advanced reactors required to fully use both the U235 and U238 as fuels have been developed and tested. In fact, the first reactor used to generate electricity in the United States in December, 1951 was the EBR-I which was just this type of reactor.

Kenneth Kok, ASME Fellow, P.E., Editor, Handbook of Nuclear Engineering (Lead Auth.),

IS IT A RESOURCE? WHAT DO WE NEED? Reprocessing: The reprocessing of used nuclear fuel is being successfully practiced in France, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan. Currently, the United States does not have a reprocessing facility.

The current process used separates the material into three streams: uranium, plutonium and fission products. The key to dealing with the safeguards (nuclear non-proliferation) issue related to reprocessing is the application of a process which keeps the uranium and plutonium mixed in the product stream. The mixed material can then be formulated into fuel for either light water reactors or fast spectrum reactors. These processes have been successfully tested in the United States.

Reactor Systems: Fast spectrum reactors have been used in the US and other countries. The availability of reprocessing will allow the use of fast spectrum reactors and thus will allow the use of all the uranium, that is, both the U235 First Issued: 10/15/2011, Rev. 3, 5/30/2012

Joseph Falcon, P.E., ASME Fellow, President ASME, 1992-1993, Amiyo K. Basu, Ph.D., P.E., ASME Fellow, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Energy Handbook, contributing author Don Gimpel, Ph.D., ASME Energy Comm.

Conrad Ladd, P.E., ASME Energy Comm.

Richard H. Meeker, Jr., P.E., Chair, ETP Working Group Steven Unikewicz, Chair, ASME Energy Committee.

Energy Talking Point (ETP) papers are produced and reviewed by the ASME Energy Committee to address fundamental questions that should be asked regarding the future of energy.

ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is a nonprofit, worldwide educational and technical society that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and skills development across all engineering disciplines. Founded in 1880, ASME now includes more than 120,000 members in over 140 countries. It conducts one of the world's largest technical publishing operations, holds more than 30 technical conferences and 200 professional development courses each year, and sets some 600 industrial and manufacturing standards, some of which have become de facto global technical standards.

The Energy Committee of ASME’s Technical Communities comprises 40 members from 17 Divisions of ASME, representing approximately 40,000 of ASME’s members.

This public statement represents the views of the Energy Committee of ASME’s Knowledge and Community Sector. It does not necessarily represent the views of ASME as a whole.

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