Spent nuclear fuel storage: What are the relationships between size and cost of the alternatives?

Geoffrey Rothwell

Energy Policy, 2021, vol. 150, issue C

Abstract: Irradiated or Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF, where it could be “used nuclear fuel” if reprocessing facilities are available) is periodically removed from nuclear power reactors and allowed to decay in suitable storage facilities. This paper attempts to calculate the relationships between sizes and costs of wet/dry and onsite/offsite SNF storage. The methodology is (1) to propose cost models based on publicly available data and (2) to estimate cost equations to compare the various storage costs. When the fuel pool nears capacity, the cheapest alternative is to transfer SNF to onsite dry storage. Once a nuclear power plant has been decommissioned, and only the onsite dry storage facility remains, there appears to be little economic reason (from the nuclear power plant owner/operator’s viewpoint) to move the SNF to consolidated facilities because of extra monetary and non-monetary costs. Unless there are explicit national policies and funded programs to manage SNF, there are likely to be legacy sites with stranded SNF. On the other hand, there is a consensus that consolidated facilities (1) would be more safe and secure than dispersed onsite storage locations, (2) would facilitate final disposal, and (3) might reduce the risks perceived by local communities of storing SNF.

Keywords: Spent nuclear fuel; Used nuclear fuel; Nuclear energy policy; Scale economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520308375
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:150:y:2021:i:c:s0301421520308375

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112126

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().