A Low-Decontamination Approach to a Proliferation-Resistant Fuel Cycle

To prevent the diversion of nuclear material from power production to weapon production either by a nation or by clandestine groups within a nation, the nuclear fuel cycle must be proliferation-resistant and safeguarded. Potentially proliferation-resistant and safeguarded fuel cycles based on low-decontamination pyroreprocessing have been developed for the light water reactor (LWR), fast breeder reactor (FBR), and FBR-LWR combination. The major penalty for recycling fission products to the LWR is that fuel enrichment must be somewhat greater to overcome parasitic fission product absorption of neutrons. In the FBR, the major penalty is a slight reduction in breeding ratio due to the displacement of fertile material by fission products. Preliminary cost analysis indicates that these fuel cycles are economically competitive with fuel cycles using conventional reprocessing or those using virgin uranium if spent fuel storage costs are considered.