Prioritizing the finite resources available to advance research, development and demonstration of the nuclear industry requires a comprehensive evaluation of potential advanced nuclear technologies to inform decision making. A number of advanced nuclear technologies and fuel cycle options present promising improvements that are only realized when deployed and running at steady-state. However, an advanced nuclear fuel cycle will not be implemented all at once. Moreover, there is little work to understand how transitioning to new nuclear energy systems could affect waste management and human health, when compared to the presently deployed, once-through nuclear fuel cycle. A potential transition from the U.S. once-through nuclear fuel cycle to a modified-open nuclear fuel cycle has been modeled, using a phased approach, including reprocessing of both plutonium and uranium within a simplified dynamic energy demand scenario. Low-radioactivity waste generated and worker collective doses were estimated based on data from industry experience and then these metrics were compared to the baseline U.S. once-through nuclear fuel cycle. Overall observations regarding the comparison between the two nuclear fuel cycles were that worker collective doses were not significantly different but a significant amount of radioactive waste was avoided by using recycled uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel. Important outcomes of this work were that the once-through nuclear fuel cycle, as implemented in the U.S., is not as simple as depicted in textbooks and fuel cycle evaluations and must be updated to serve as an accurate baseline against which to measure performance of future potential advanced nuclear fuel cycles. It was also concluded that the two major contributions to occupational radiological impacts in the once-through nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium recovery operations through reactor operations, had reversed in recent years; this is different from historical data and conventional wisdom which says that impacts from the front-end of the once-through nuclear fuel cycle are dominant.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07252014-110055 |
| Date | 25 July 2014 |
| Creators | Smith, Bethany Lee |
| Contributors | Allen G. Croff, Andrew G. Sowder, Steven L. Krahn, David S. Kosson, James H. Clarke |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07252014-110055/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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