A Study on the Once-Through Back-End Fuel Cycle Scenario

There are three options for spent fuel management, recycle, once-through and wait and see. The national policy for spent fuel in Korea is “wait and see” and it has to be clearly decided for spent fuel management. The final disposal is the last stage of the fuel cycle and it is essential even though the recycling option will be chosen for spent fuel management policy. And the long-term strategy for spent fuel management considering safety and retrievability is needed. In this study, once-through fuel cycle was focused on for back-end fuel cycle. The international trend for SF management policy and the Korean situation has been investigated. The once-through back-end fuel cycle scenarios has been developed and screened in point of technical and economical aspect. The optimal scenario has been derived by relative comparison and the long-term SF management strategy has been proposed which satisfies both domestic conditions and international trends.Copyright © 2009 by ASME