Actinide recycling within closed fuel cycles

摘要

Three main improvement steps in nuclear fuel reprocessing and recycling, including a gradual transformation to fast reactors starting in the 2020s, can be defined for the next century (Figure 9). Current once-through fuel cycles without any recycling misuse the uranium natural resource with an efficiency that is lower than 1%. This practice clearly does not preserve the rights of future generations to use nuclear fission to produce electricity. Furthermore, it yields a massive accumulation of spent nuclear fuel which is transferred as a burden towards future generations, instead of recycling the valuable materials and confining as best as possible the ultimate waste in a specifically-tailored wasteform such as nuclear glass.