Heterogeneous world model and collaborative scenarios of transition to globally sustainable nuclear energy systems

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) was established in 2000 with the goal to ensure a sustainable nuclear energy supply to meet the global energy needs in the 21st century. The INPRO activities on global and regional nuclear energy scenarios provide newcomers and mature nuclear countries alike with better understanding of options for making a collaborative transition to future sustainable nuclear energy systems. Collaborative project GAINS (Global Architecture of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems Based on Thermal and Fast Reactors Including a Closed Fuel Cycle) developed an internationally verified analytical framework for assessing such transition scenarios. The framework (hereafter, GAINS framework) is a part of the integrated services provided by IAEA to Member States considering initial development or expansion of their nuclear energy programmes. The paper presents major elements of the analytical framework and selected results of its application, including: • Long-term nuclear energy demand scenarios based on the IAEA Member States’ high and low estimations of nuclear power deployment until 2030 and expected trends until 2050 and on forecasts of competent international energy organizations; • Heterogeneous world model comprised of groups of non-personified non-geographical countries (NGs) with different policy regarding nuclear fuel cycle back end; • Architectures of nuclear energy systems; • Metrics and tools for the assessment of dynamic nuclear energy system evolution scenarios regarding sustainability, including a set of key indicators and evaluation parameters; • An internationally verified database with best estimate material flow and economic characteristics of existing and advanced nuclear reactors and associated nuclear fuel cycles needed for material flow analysis and comparative economic analysis, extending the previously developed IAEA databases and taking into account preferences of different countries; • Selected results of sample analysis for scenarios involving transition from the present fleets of nuclear reactors and fuel cycles to future sustainable nuclear energy system architectures involving innovative technological solutions.

Analysis of nuclear proliferation resistance

Benchmarking of nuclear economics tools

Sustainability of the Chinese nuclear expansion: Natural uranium resources availability, Pu cycle, fuel utilization efficiency and spent fuel management

Sustainability of the Chinese nuclear expansion: The role of ADS to close the nuclear fuel cycle

Sustainability has gained paramount importance in contemporary scientific inquiry, particularly in relation to its profound societal implications. Within this context, the energy sector emerges as a pivotal focus area. Nuclear energy, notably, presents itself as a promising avenue within the spectrum of clean and green energy sources, but this claim is not widely accepted. A comprehensive exploration of discourses surrounding the sustainability of nuclear energy remains absent in scientific production. This paper aims to address this gap by identifying and categorizing main themes within discourses on the sustainability of nuclear energy through the scientific production which are peer review articles (papers) published in journals indexed in WOS and Scopus database. A semi-systematic literature review approach was employed, analysing 59 peer-reviewed journal articles in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) checklist. Through thematic analysis five major themes and thirteen sub-themes were identified. These themes included nuclear perception (assessment, implication, and expectation), nuclear energy policy (national, international, regional), nuclear energy acceptance (drivers and barriers), controversial issues (usefulness and feasibility), and sustainability assessment (benefits, opportunities, and safety). The findings underscore the critical importance for future policy and research endeavours to integrate considerations of nuclear energy's sustainability. Moreover, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the discourses surrounding nuclear energy sustainability, offering valuable insights for regulators, policymakers, academics, and practitioners alike. Ultimately, this study contributes to a more informed dialogue surrounding nuclear energy's role in the pursuit of sustainable energy solutions.

The present PhD thesis summarizes the three-years study about the neutronic investigation of a new concept nuclear reactor aiming at the optimization and the sustainable management of nuclear fuel in a possible European scenario. A new generation nuclear reactor for the nuclear reinassance is indeed desired by the actual industrialized world, both for the solution of the energetic question arising from the continuously growing energy demand together with the corresponding reduction of oil availability, and the environment question for a sustainable energy source free from Long Lived Radioisotopes and therefore geological repositories. Among the Generation IV candidate typologies, the Lead Fast Reactor concept has been pursued, being the one top rated in sustainability. The European Lead-cooled SYstem (ELSY) has been at first investigated. The neutronic analysis of the ELSY core has been performed via deterministic analysis by means of the ERANOS code, in order to retrieve a stable configuration for the overall design of the reactor. Further analyses have been carried out by means of the Monte Carlo general purpose transport code MCNP, in order to check the former one and to define an exact model of the system. An innovative system of absorbers has been conceptualized and designed for both the reactivity compensation and regulation of the core due to cycle swing, as well as for safety in order to guarantee the cold shutdown of the system in case of accident. Aiming at the sustainability of nuclear energy, the steady-state nuclear equilibrium has been investigated and generalized into the definition of the ``extended'' equilibrium state. According to this, the Adiabatic Reactor Theory has been developed, together with a New Paradigm for Nuclear Power: in order to design a reactor that does not exchange with the environment anything valuable (thus the term ``adiabatic''), in the sense of both Plutonium and Minor Actinides, it is required indeed to revert the logical design scheme of nuclear cores, starting from the definition of the equilibrium composition of the fuel and submitting to the latter the whole core design. The New Paradigm has been applied then to the core design of an Adiabatic Lead Fast Reactor complying with the ELSY overall system layout. A complete core characterization has been done in order to asses criticality and power flattening; a preliminary evaluation of the main safety parameters has been also done to verify the viability of the system. Burn up calculations have been then performed in order to investigate the operating cycle for the Adiabatic Lead Fast Reactor; the fuel performances have been therefore extracted and inserted in a more general analysis for an European scenario. The present nuclear reactors fleet has been modeled and its evolution simulated by means of the COSI code in order to investigate the materials fluxes to be managed in the European region. Different plausible scenarios have been identified to forecast the evolution of the European nuclear energy production, including the one involving the introduction of Adiabatic Lead Fast Reactors, and compared to better analyze the advantages introduced by the adoption of new concept reactors. At last, since both ELSY and the ALFR represent new concept systems based upon innovative solutions, the neutronic design of a demonstrator reactor has been carried out: such a system is intended to prove the viability of technology to be implemented in the First-of-a-Kind industrial power plant, with the aim at attesting the general strategy to use, to the largest extent. It was chosen then to base the DEMO design upon a compromise between demonstration of developed technology and testing of emerging technology in order to significantly subserve the purpose of reducing uncertainties about construction and licensing, both validating ELSY/ALFR main features and performances, and to qualify numerical codes and tools.

Each week seems to bring further evidence that the Earth is warming at a faster rate than previously estimated. Pressure is building to replace power sources that emit carbon dioxide with those tha...

The IAEA General Conference in 2000 has invited “all interested Member States to combine their efforts under the aegis of the Agency in considering the issues of the nuclear fuel cycle, in particular by examining innovative and proliferation-resistant nuclear technology”. In response to this invitation, the IAEA initiated an “International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles” (INPRO). The overall objectives of INPRO are to help to ensure that nuclear energy is available to contribute in fulfilling in a sustainable manner energy needs in the 21st century, and to bring together all interested Member States, both technology holders and technology users, to consider jointly the international and national actions required to achieve desired innovations in nuclear reactors and fuel cycles that use sound and economically competitive technology. In the first phase of the project the report “Guidance for the evaluation of innovative nuclear reactors and fuel cycles” has been published. (June 2003, IAEA tecdoc 1362, Report of Phase 1A) In the following phase member states are contributing by case studies to validate the methodology for assessment and to evaluate the application of the basic principles, requirements and criteria. The paper will shortly summarize the main findings of the published report in the following fields (a) Prospects and Potentials of Nuclear Power, (b) Economics; (c) Sustainability and Environment, (d) Safety of Nuclear Installations, (e) Waste Management, (f) Proliferation Resistance, (g) Crosscutting issues and (h) the Methodology for Assessment. Further on the paper will deal with the actual phase of INPRO and the ongoing activities.

INPRO economic assessment of the IRIS nuclear reactor for deployment in Brazil

The use of thorium as a “fertile” material in combination with a fissile material (either U233, U235 or plutonium) as an alternative to the uranium fuel cycle received a great deal of attention in many venues from the 1950s to the mid 70s. More recently, new studies have been carried out on this cycle for transmutation purposes and several countries such as India still continue to consider the thorium cycle as an attractive option within the framework of their national nuclear programs.The purpose of this paper is to provide an updated overview of the potential of the thorium cycle, taking into account the renewed interest in the development of nuclear energy as currently under consideration for future energy systems.In this paper many of the issues related to the use of thorium at each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle are reviewed from the standpoint of industrial feasibility and economy.First, past experience with using thorium as a fuel for prototype or commercial nuclear reactors, particularly in hgh temperature reactors, is examined. The neutronic and physic aspects of the thorium in various reactors will be overviewed. Second, updated data on world-wide thorium resources and supplies is presented. Then, the sustainability issues of nuclear energy development with regard to the future availability of natural resources (uranium and thorium) are addressed. After that follows a discussion of the pros and cons of radiological/ nuclear/chemical characteristics of thorium as it relates to the implementation of fuel cycle industrial processes and impacts on the wastes. In particular, the technical aspects of back end fuel cycle issues are examined for both open and closed fuel cycles including reprocessing and recycling technical issues. Also examined are proliferation issues related to the use of the thorium cycle. Accompanying this examination is a comprehensive analysis of the technical features of various thorium fuel cycle options from the standpoint of proliferation resistance. Finally, economical aspects of the thorium fuel cycle are addressed.In summary, these analyses permit the reader to draw some general conclusions regarding the use of the thorium cycle for the development of a sustainable nuclear energy system.

In times of high fossil fuel prices and climate change concerns, more and more countries evaluate nuclear energy as a sustainable addition to their energy portfolio. But increased interest in nuclear power also leads to increased concerns about the risk of diversion of nuclear materials or technologies for covert weapons programs. As a result, proliferation resistance of future nuclear fuel cycles is one of the key discussion points of current initiatives such as Generation IV International Forum (GIF), the International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Proliferation resistance has both intrinsic and extrinsic components. Intrinsic components refer to the design of the facilities and the types, chemical composition and physical characteristics of the materials used. Extrinsic features include the institutional barriers and the application of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, including the measurement methods and technologies employed in that context. Development of new safeguards instrumentation is critical for the IAEA to cope not only with technical issues (emergence of new technologies and the inevitable obsolescence of system components) but also to support policy-related advances, including safeguards policies, new approaches to safeguarding of excess material, and the introduction of new types of facilities to be safeguarded. These development projects usually involve IAEA staff and Member States and their Support Programs (MSSP) as well as research and development institutions and the private sector. Without a closely coordinated cooperation between all parties, the challenging task of timely developing, fielding, and maintaining new safeguards inspection tools over their complete lifecycle would not be possible. The role of the private sector is certainly focused on providing instrumentation and related services solutions, either developed by research and development institutions and then commercialized by industrial partners or developed within the private sector directly. Only rarely can the safeguards community rely on commercially or industrially developed solutions directly; generally, at least some custom development effort to meet safeguards requirements is needed. The instrumentation applied for safeguards varies broadly to cover different needs of safeguards authorities. The traditional safeguards instrumentation supports IAEA inspectors in their mission to verify the correctness of information about declared materials and facilities and includes measures to verify material composition and inventory as well as equipment that help establishing Continuity of Knowledge about non-diversion at safeguarded installations. With the implementation of the Additional Protocol (AP), the IAEA was further tasked to verify the completeness of declarations to ensure that safeguarded countries do not pursue covert nuclear weapons programs using undeclared nuclear materials and installations. Safeguards instrumentation used in the context of the AP has quite different requirements as it is not installed at declared installations but needs to be portable for inspector visit to undeclared sites. It also needs to be selected in the broader context of other safeguards measures used under the AP such as satellite imagery, open source analysis, etc. Use of safeguards instrumentation to accomplish the IAEA's verification mission is not new. The "traditional" measurement technologies for detection of declared materials consist of nondestructive analysis methods (NDA), which include primarily gamma and neutron measurement methods, unattended radiation monitoring systems (UMS), other measurement and monitoring systems, and containment and surveillance techniques. In this paper we will first outline the traditional Safeguards instrumentation approach and efforts that aim at verifying the correctness of information about declared nuclear materials and facilities, mainly including materials accountancy, materials composition measurements, and containment verification. We will discuss examples of why some of these methods have evolved into their present status. Some of the challenges to applying the present state of the art solutions will be highlighted. We will also discuss general requirements of safeguards instrumentation used for AP inspections and present a select number of technologies applicable to this field. Finally, we will conclude with our vision of what is needed for additional development in the near term. In particular, we will present the case of how the use of a building block approach developed by the industry (instrumentation and nuclear facility specialists) in cooperation with the safeguards community can make these next generation safeguards instruments and systems very cost effective to install and deploy.

This paper presents the IAEA International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO). It defines its rationale, key objectives and specifies the organizational structure. The IAEA General Conference (2000) has invited “all interested Member States to combine their efforts under the aegis of the Agency in considering the issues of the nuclear fuel cycle, in particular by examining innovative and proliferation-resistant nuclear technology” (GC(44)/RES/21) and invited Member States to consider to contribute to a task force on innovative nuclear reactors and fuel cycle (GC(44)/RES/22). In response to this invitation, the IAEA initiated an “International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles”, INPRO. The Terms of Reference for INPRO were adopted at a preparatory meeting in November 2000, and the project was finally launched by the INPRO Steering Committee in May 2001. At the General Conference in 2001, first progress was reported, and the General Conference adopted a resolution on “Agency Activities in the Development of Innovative Nuclear Technology” [GC(45)/RES/12, Tab F], giving INPRO a broad basis of support. The resolution recognized the “unique role that the Agency can play in international collaboration in the nuclear field”. It invited both “interested Member States to contribute to innovative nuclear technology activities” at the Agency as well as the Agency itself “to continue it’s efforts in these areas”. Additional endorsement came in a UN General Assembly resolution in December 2001 (UN GA 2001, A/RES/56/94), that again emphasized “the unique role that the Agency can play in developing user requirements and in addressing safeguards, safety and environmental questions for innovative reactors and their fuel cycles” and stressed “the need for international collaboration in the development of innovative nuclear technology”. As of February 2002, the following countries or entities have become members of INPRO: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey and the European Commission. In total, 15 cost-free experts have been nominated by their respective governments or international organizations. The objective of INPRO is to support the safe, sustainable, economic and proliferation resistant use of nuclear technology to meet the global energy needs of the 21st century. Phase I of INPRO was initiated in May 2001. During Phase I, work is subdivided in two subphases: Phase IA (in progress): Selection of criteria and development of methodologies and guidelines for the comparison of different concepts and approaches, taking into account the compilation and review of such concepts and approaches, and determination of user requirements. Phase IB (to be started after Phase IA is completed): Examination of innovative nuclear energy technologies made available by Member States against criteria and requirements. This examination will be co-ordinated by the Agency and performed with participatio of Member States on the basis of the user requirements and methodologies established in Phase IA. In the first phase, six subject groups were established: Resources, Demand and User requirements for Economics; User requirements for the Environment, Fuel cycle and Waste; User requirements for Safety; User requirements for Non-proliferation; User requirements for crosscutting issues; Criteria and Methodology.

The objective of this report is to identify new basic science that will be the foundation for advances in nuclear fuel-cycle technology in the near term, and for changing the nature of fuel cycles and of the nuclear energy industry in the long term. The goals are to enhance the development of nuclear energy, to maximize energy production in nuclear reactor parks, and to minimize radioactive wastes, other environmental impacts, and proliferation risks. The limitations of the once-through fuel cycle can be overcome by adopting a closed fuel cycle, in which the irradiated fuel is reprocessed and its components are separated into streams that are recycled into a reactor or disposed of in appropriate waste forms. The recycled fuel is irradiated in a reactor, where certain constituents are partially transmuted into heavier isotopes via neutron capture or into lighter isotopes via fission. Fast reactors are required to complete the transmutation of long-lived isotopes. Closed fuel cycles are encompassed by the Department of Energy?s Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), to which basic scientific research can contribute. Two nuclear reactor system architectures can meet the AFCI objectives: a ?single-tier? system or a ?dual-tier? system. Both begin with light water reactors and incorporate fast reactors. The ?dual-tier? systems transmute some plutonium and neptunium in light water reactors and all remaining transuranic elements (TRUs) in a closed-cycle fast reactor. Basic science initiatives are needed in two broad areas: ? Near-term impacts that can enhance the development of either ?single-tier? or ?dual-tier? AFCI systems, primarily within the next 20 years, through basic research. Examples: Dissolution of spent fuel, separations of elements for TRU recycling and transmutation Design, synthesis, and testing of inert matrix nuclear fuels and non-oxide fuels Invention and development of accurate on-line monitoring systems for chemical and nuclear species in the nuclear fuel cycle Development of advanced tools for designing reactors with reduced margins and lower costs ? Long-term nuclear reactor development requires basic science breakthroughs: Understanding of materials behavior under extreme environmental conditions Creation of new, efficient, environmentally benign chemical separations methods Modeling and simulation to improve nuclear reaction cross-section data, design new materials and separation system, and propagate uncertainties within the fuel cycle Improvement of proliferation resistance by strengthening safeguards technologies and decreasing the attractiveness of nuclear materials A series of translational tools is proposed to advance the AFCI objectives and to bring the basic science concepts and processes promptly into the technological sphere. These tools have the potential to revolutionize the approach to nuclear engineering R&D by replacing lengthy experimental campaigns with a rigorous approach based on modeling, key fundamental experiments, and advanced simulations.

This paper presents the initial provisions, materials, results, current status and next tasks of the study dedicated to the issues of legal and institutional support of transportable nuclear power plants. This study is performed in the framework of the IAEA International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles INPRO. Transportable nuclear power plants (TNPPs) are either small nuclear power plants (SNPPs) with their lifecycle implemented on a single transportable platform, or SNPPs assembled of transportable factory-made modules. Advantages of SNPPs and TNPPs are: • Enhanced safety and reliability; • Design simplicity, • Shorter construction period; • Industrial serial production; • Smaller capital costs and shorter investment cycle compared with large NPP; • Possibility of autonomous operation; • Suitability for non-electric application and others. There is an objective evidence of growing interest in developing a nuclear energy system (NES) based on SNPPs including TNPPs. Underlying assumptions of the Russian study: • The User of TNPP services is interested in receiving energy only, does not claim ownership of nuclear technologies, materials and TNPP itself, and this incurs minimal liability for nuclear energy use; INPRO defines this TNPP lifecycle option as “Maximum outsourcing”; • All operations involving nuclear fuel are performed either at the TNPP manufacturer plant, or at a regional TNPP service center within the Holder’s liability zone; • TNPP sitting requires no onsite operations except assembling. Expert reviews have been performed to confirm TNPP lifecycle compliance with the nuclear legislation in fields such as: safety; non-proliferation; nuclear materials’ monitoring, accounting and control; physical protection; and civil liability for nuclear damage; transport operations. It was confirmed that: • In traditional approaches, the existing legal and institutional framework is sufficient for implementing TNPP lifecycle; to achieve the highest efficiency and safety of TNPPs it is necessary to develop TNPPs’ designs, their legal and institutional support; • The following issues are of immediate interest for further studies: combination of inherent safety features and passive safety systems in TNPPs; TNPP lifecycle economy; lifecycle concept without onsite refueling; new approaches to indemnification for nuclear damage; new approaches to physical protection; nuclear liability of TNPP User; remote nuclear materials monitoring, and control and TNPP’ operating; serial industrial fabrication; licensing and certification; public-private partnership; international personnel training system; international cooperation in TNPP fabrication and servicing; role of the IAEA in developing TNPP-based NES. • TNPP/SNPP-based nuclear energy system including all kinds of respective legal, institutional and infrastructural support should become the subject of further studies.