Appendix H
Reprocessing and Recycling Practices in Other Countries
Most of the approximately 30 countries with nuclear power programs neither reprocess spent nuclear fuel nor use mixed oxide (MOX) fuels. Only France and Russia currently operate commercial-scale reprocessing facilities. China has one operating small-scale facility for reprocessing civilian nuclear fuel and one under construction. About 10 percent of the world’s reactors are licensed to use MOX fuel, but MOX comprises only about 5 percent of the world’s new nuclear fuel (WNA, 2017a).
In 2010, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) conducted an extensive review of advanced fuel cycle strategies looking at sustainability related to four challenges: (1) natural uranium resources, (2) waste management, (3) economic competitiveness, and (4) nonproliferation (EPRI, 2010b). That review evaluated closing the fuel cycle first in terms of Pu management, which has a significant impact on storage decisions, and then in terms of management of the minor actinides (Np, Am, Cm) by considering a sequence of advanced fuel cycles that are described in Chapter 4. EPRI concluded that the real strategic choice, from a technical perspective, is either the once-through fuel cycle (i.e., no plutonium recovery) or the reuse of the recovered Pu in fast reactors for multirecycling. Only those countries that commit to pursuing the latter option will potentially benefit from their involvement in developing the industrial know-how necessary to adapt the PUREX process to the reprocessing of light water reactor (LWR) oxide fuels. Otherwise, they would later be faced with introducing even more advanced reprocessing technologies, such as reprocessing of fast reactor fuels, without extensive prior experience (EPRI, 2010b).
Below are summaries of reprocessing activities in China, India, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Section 2.6 provides more detailed descriptions and a comparison of the relevant programs and policies in France and the United States.
CHINA
China’s overarching goal in the development of its nuclear power program is to become self-sufficient in most aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. Dating back to the 1980s, China opted for a closed fuel cycle strategy, motivated by desires to (1) increase uranium resource utilization and reduce costs associated with mining, milling, and enrichment; (2) increase energy security; (3) decrease repository volume; (4) minimize waste radiotoxicity; and (5) reduce spent fuel in reactor pools (Zhang, 2021). One of the strategic principles for nuclear power in China’s 13th Five Year Plan, which was approved in March 2016, was to accelerate the building of demonstration
and large-scale reprocessing plants. In 2010, China had completed commissioning of a pilot reprocessing plant at Lanzhou Nuclear Fuel Complex and used it to reprocess about 50 MT (metric tons) of spent fuel from 2013 to 2015. China next began work on a demonstration spent fuel reprocessing plant with a capacity of 200 MT annually, which is being constructed in Gansu Nuclear Technology Industrial Park and is expected to start operations in 2025 (WNA, 2021h). A MOX demonstration plant with 20 MT per year capacity is being built at the same site (Zhang, 2021). In addition, since the end of 2020 China has reportedly been constructing a second 200-MT/y plant (WNA, 2021h).
To reach commercial-scale operations of reprocessing, China has partnered with French-based Areva (now Orano) since November 2007 to develop an 800-MT/y reprocessing and MOX fabrication plant using French technology (WNA, 2021h). In August 2021, Orano announced that negotiations were in the final phase and that China’s plant will be based on Orano’s La Hague reprocessing plant and the MELOX MOX fabrication plant (Orano, 2021b). The Chinese National Nuclear Corporation aimed to begin construction of this 800-MT/y plant in 2020 and start operation by 2030, but as of 2021 no site had been selected (Zhang, 2021).
INDIA
Since the 1950s, India has had a three-part strategy for its nuclear power program: (1) using limited indigenous supplies of natural uranium to fuel a fleet of heavy water reactors on natural uranium fuel, (2) reprocessing this spent fuel to recycle plutonium to fuel breeder reactors, and (3) using the produced plutonium in a Th fuel cycle to breed 233U (see Chapter 3). India has about one-third of the known global Th supplies.
While India has successfully executed the first phase of its strategic plan, it has not fully developed the other two phases. India has a modest total reprocessing capacity of about 200 MT/y with about 100 MT annual capacity at each plant at Tarapur and Kalpakkam. About 115 MT/y are reprocessed, resulting in about 400 kg of Pu annually; these reprocessing plants could be used for weapons purposes. Under the 2010 U.S.–India nuclear deal, India announced plans to build two larger capacity reprocessing plants that would be placed under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards (WNA, 2021g).
JAPAN
Japan has pursued development of reprocessing and Pu recycling since the beginning of its nuclear energy program in 1956. From 1977 to 2009, at Tokai, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency operated a pilot-scale reprocessing plant with 90 MT annual capacity. During more than three decades of operations until its closure in 2014, the Tokai plant reprocessed 1,140 MT of spent fuel, including spent fuel from its fleet of boiling water reactors, pressurized water reactors, and Pu-U MOX and reprocessed U fuel from its heavy water–moderated, light water–cooled Advanced Thermal Reactor (JAEA, n.d.; WNA, 2021f).
For more than three decades, Japan has been building the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant (RRP), which has a planned capacity of 800 MT/y. The startup of RRP has been long delayed in part because Japan had to rebuild the vitrification plant and retrofit additional safety and security features throughout the plant. As of August 2020, the total project cost estimate was ¥13,900 billion ($130 billion) to include construction and operation of the RRP and its eventual decommissioning (NEI, 2020b). In February 2022, Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL), which will operate RRP, stated that actual reprocessing operations would likely not occur until fiscal year (FY) 2023, in part because it had to meet new regulatory requirements for safety upgrades imposed after Fukushima. JNFL also announced a delay in the startup of the MOX fuel fabrication plant to the first half of Japan’s FY2024 (JNFL, 2022). As with the RRP, JNFL will have to install additional safety measures at the MOX plant and will have to undergo additional regulatory agency approval of this work before it will be allowed to operate.
In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima accident, the Japanese government reevaluated its nuclear energy policy and decided to substantially reduce the share of nuclear power in electricity generation from the 30 percent level at the time of the accident to a projected 20–22 percent by 2030. (In early April 2022, amid the crisis in Ukraine, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida floated the idea that Japan might increase its use of nuclear power.) While the post-Fukushima accident policy shift might have also resulted in Japan’s reducing or even abandoning its
planned use of reprocessing, the Japanese government is still committed to reprocessing 100 percent of its spent fuel because Japanese utilities view Pu as an asset. If the government would abandon reprocessing, the utilities’ balance sheets would then have to book spent fuel as a liability, potentially tipping some utilities into bankruptcy unless the government bails them out. Another reason for the continued reprocessing policy is the government’s commitment to local communities around nuclear power plants and the reprocessing plant that spent fuel would not end up indefinitely stored on the sites and that Japan would eventually close the fuel cycle, although that possibility has been delayed beyond 2050 (Toki and Pomper, 2013). Most of Japan’s reprocessed spent fuel was done in other countries, namely France and the United Kingdom, which have accumulated a large stockpile of Japanese origin plutonium. Japan’s Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Fund Act, passed in 2016, outlines a plan for funding and implementing the reprocessing of spent fuel (METI, 2016).
RUSSIA
Russia considers Pu a strategic energy resource, and its policy is to recycle as much reprocessed U and Pu as possible. However, the practical application has fallen short, with only about 16 percent of used fuel having been reprocessed. Still, Russia’s stated goal is to fully close the fuel cycle by 2030 (WNA, 2021d).
Russia has performed commercial reprocessing since the 1970s, with operation of the RT-1 plant at the Mayak Chemical Combine in Ozersk beginning in 1971. RT-1 has a capacity of 400 MT/y, but it has not been operating at full capacity in recent years because of environmental constraints and the loss of foreign reprocessing contracts. The much larger-capacity RT-2 plant at the Mayak Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk is projected to be ready by 2025 and has a planned capacity of 700 MT/y. An additional 800 MT of annual capacity are slated to come online a few years after the RT-2 start date (WNA, 2021d). Also, Zheleznogorsk houses the Pilot Demonstration Center for researching and demonstrating innovative reprocessing methods for both fast and thermal reactors. (NEI, 2017).
Russia has significant experience in commercially operating fast neutron sodium-cooled reactors. The BN-350 (350 MWe) operated in Aktau, Kazakhstan, from 1973 to 1999, after which it was decommissioned. The BN-600 (600 MWe) has been in operation since 1981 in Zarechnyy at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant, and its license is to be extended to 2040. These reactors have been fueled with 17, 21, and 26 percent–enriched uranium. The BN-800 (800 MWe), also at Beloyarsk, has been operational since its connection to the grid in December 2015. Because of limits on MOX fabrication capacity, the BN-800 started up with a hybrid core of highly enriched uranium plus experimental MOX; a core partially fueled with standard pelletized MOX has been used since August 2019, and a transition to a full MOX core occurred in 2022. Uranium-plutonium nitride fuel is under development. At Seversk, Russia is moving forward on the “breakthrough project,” an experimental demonstration power complex designed to demonstrate a closed fuel cycle. The project consists of a power reactor in combination with a reprocessing plant and fuel fabrication facility. The reactor is the Brest-OD-300, a fast-neutron, lead-cooled reactor rated at 300 MWe, 700 MWth, that will be fueled by a dense mixed uranium-plutonium nitride fuel. Construction began in June 2021 and is expected to be completed in 2026–2027. Russia’s other advanced reactor projects, which could use recycled fuel, include (1) the BN-1200, which would be a fast neutron sodium-cooled reactor at 1200 MWe using nitride fuel (the decision to build was postponed until 2030); (2) the SVBR-100, which would be a fast neutron lead-bismuth-cooled reactor based on naval reactor design; and (3) molten salt reactors, which are undergoing research and development (Podvig, 2021).
Russia is also developing and promoting a new option for recycling spent nuclear fuel in thermal reactors using REMIX fuel (REgenerated MIXture of U-Pu oxides), which involves mixing together reprocessed U and Pu and increasing the 235U content to the required level by the addition of HALEU (<20 percent 235U). The resulting neutron spectrum of REMIX fuel does not differ significantly from standard enriched UOX, and the Pu content is nominally less than 2 percent. As a result, REMIX fuel can be used without reactor modifications at 100 percent core loading and can be recycled around 5 times in an LWR. Russia claims that the REMIX concept will allow more efficient use of nuclear fuel, reduce the amount of spent nuclear fuel to be stored and disposed, and decrease the risk of nuclear proliferation (Postovarova et al., 2016). In December 2021, Russia announced that six REMIX
fuel assemblies were loaded into a VVER-1000 reactor (Balakovo NPP) for a planned 5-year irradiation period (NEI, 2021b).
UNITED KINGDOM
In the United Kingdom, reprocessing efforts were motivated by the necessity to stabilize spent Magnox fuel prior to storage and for the production of Pu for nuclear weapons. Magnox reactors, which have all been shut down, ran on natural uranium metal fuel and were graphite-moderated and gas-cooled. The United Kingdom reprocessed all Magnox spent fuel 6 months after removing it from a reactor because corrosion of the cladding does not allow the spent fuel to be stored for long periods underwater (Worrall, 2021). The B205 Magnox Reprocessing Plant, which began operations in 1964 at Sellafield, was scheduled to close at the end of 2021 after reprocessing the final Magnox spent fuel (IPFM, 2020), but was still operating as of February 2022 (ENS, 2022).
The United Kingdom has also reprocessed oxide fuels. In 1994, the United Kingdom commissioned the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) with a capacity of 600 MT/y. In November 2018, THORP was closed after having processed more than 9,000 MT of spent fuel from 30 customers in nine countries after a loss of overseas contracts made continued operation economically infeasible. UK nuclear power plants provided about 60 percent of the spent fuel that THORP reprocessed. The THORP storage pool is being used to store some Advanced Gas Reactor spent fuel and other types of UK reactors’ spent fuel while awaiting final disposal (WNA, 2021e).
The United Kingdom has a backlog of about 140 MT of stored Pu (24 MT of which are foreign owned) (IAEA, 2021c). UK utilities are not interested in reusing the Pu in their nuclear power plants because U-based fuels are less expensive and U supplies are relatively abundant. However, since 2011 the UK government policy is to demonstrate the feasibility of MOX fuel and to use it in commercial reactors. (The UK fast reactor program was shut down in 1994.) However, 241Am has built up in the stored plutonium due to the decay of 241Pu and will have to be removed to make MOX fuel. Research is ongoing to demonstrate that “the blending of plutonium batches will enable the americium-241 ingrowth to be adequately managed with respect to MOX fuel manufacture” (Hyatt, 2020).
