SUMMERLIN, NEV. — One of the biggest challenges facing researchers looking into the advanced nuclear fuel cycle at Idaho National Laboratory is bringing down spent fuel management costs, a lab official said here this week.
“It is strategically very important to us to show that, on the advanced reactors program, we are able to close the fuel cycle,” said Robert Miklos, director of Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL) production, treatment, storage and disposal facilities, during a panel Wednesday at Exchange Monitor’s annual Radwaste Summit.
To manage waste streams from advanced reactors, Miklos said, traditional disposition pathways may not be adequate.
“If we try to stay the course on some legacy disposition pathways, unfortunately, the back end of the fuel cycle [for advanced fuels] will in some cases be more costly than the entire demonstration reactor,” Miklos said. “We have to change that, or we’re not going to get these start-up companies to take on these risks.”
Meanwhile, INL is currently treating used uranium fuel from its on-site Experimental Breeder Reactor 2 plant to create high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel for advanced reactors, Miklos said. That process will help to fuel a future advanced nuclear fleet until the U.S. has commercial scale, domestic HALEU enrichment capabilities, he said.
As INL seeks to head off possible waste disposal issues for future advanced reactors, some are questioning whether the next generation of nuclear power will actually produce more waste than the existing fleet.
A report published last week by a Stanford University research team surveyed several designs for small modular reactors (SMRs) and concluded, among other things, that SMRs would produce a greater waste volume than conventional nuclear reactors, and that the spent fuel from such reactors would be around 50% more radioactive.
The Department of Energy is currently working with several advanced nuclear companies, such as Holtec International and Bill Gates-owned TerraPower, under its Advanced Reactors Demonstration Program to develop and deploy these emerging technologies.
