Abstract
One of the main concerns related to nuclear power production is the generation and accumulation of spent nuclear fuel. Currently most of the spent fuel is stored in interim storage facilities awaiting final disposal or reprocessing. The spent fuel is stored in isolation from the environment in protected facilities or specially designed containers. Nevertheless, spent fuel and highly active waste might get in the environment in case the protective barriers are compromised. In such a case, spent fuel may pose risk to the environment and human health. Those risks depend on the concentration of the given radionuclide and are measured by the value of potential danger. The potential danger is called also ’radiotoxicity’. The paper examines spent uranium and MOX fuels from a reference PWR, as well as the highly radioactive wastes of their reprocessing. The radiotoxicity of the four materials is examined and evaluated for a cooling time of 1000 years. The contribution of different radionuclides is assessed and the cases of reprocessing and no reprocessing of spent fuel have been compared.
Highlights
One of the main concerns related to nuclear power production is the generation and accumulation of spent nuclear fuel
The potential danger is called ‘radiotoxicity’. It measures the potential danger a given radionuclide poses if it is ingested or inhaled and is defined as the volume of water or air respectively in which the radionuclide should be diluted in order to achieve concentration within the permissible levels
Ci eOi t V ILi where Ci,0 is the initial concentration of the i-th radionuclide, i is the decay constant of the i-th radionuclide, t is time, ILi is the values of maximum permissible concentration or intervention level of the i-th radionuclide, and V is the volume of water or air needed to dilute the i-th radionuclide’s concentration to permissible level
Summary
One of the main concerns related to nuclear power production is the generation and accumulation of spent nuclear fuel. In the closed fuel cycle case, the spent uranium fuel is cooled down for 10 years after discharge before reprocessing, extracting the plutonium and mixed oxide fuel manufacturing.
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