Nuclear energy cycle

Fuel and Heavy Water Hvailahility, Report of Working Group 1, International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation, Vieima, Austria, International Atomic Energy Agency STl/PUB/534, UNIPUB, Inc., New York, 1980, pp. 174-175. 

The Economics of the NuclearFuel Cycle, Organi2ation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Nuclear Energy Agency, Paris, France, 1994. 

Uranium is used as the primai-y source of nuclear energy in a nuclear reactor, although one-third to one-half of the power will be produced from plutonium before the power plant is refueled. Plutonium is created during the uranium fission cycle, and after being created will also fission, contributing heat to make steam in the nuclear power plant. These two nuclear fuels are discussed separately in order to explore their similarities and differences. Mixed oxide fuel, a combination of uranium and recovered plutonium, also has limited application in nuclear fuel, and will be briefly discussed. 

Plutonium-239 is a fissile element, and vvill split into fragments when struck by a neutron in the nuclear reactor. This makes Pu-239 similar to U-235, able to produce heat and sustain a controlled nuclear reaction inside the nuclear reactor. Nuclear power plants derive over one-third of their power output from the fission of Pu-239. Most of the uranium inside nuclear fuel is U-238. Only a small fraction is the fissile U-235. Over the life cycle of the nuclear fuel, the U-238 changes into Pu-239, which continues to provide nuclear energy to generate electricity. 

Nuclear Fuel Cycle R D Group, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute P.O. Box 105, Yuseong, Daejeon, 305-600, Korea (e-mail nhcyang kaeri.re.kr)... 

Three of these awards were for proliferation resistant reactors. By exploring advanced concepts such as modular reactors with long-life cores and thorium-based firel cycles, we may be able to find solutions to the greatest challenges facing the nuclear energy industry. 

This facility design concept was not considered in White House reviews of reprocessing during the Ford and Carter Administrations, nor as an option for support by President Reagan, who had been elected on a platform to support reprocessing of commercial spent firel. The ERDA and the DOE had reassigned responsibilities for commercial fuel cycle to its Division of Reactor Development (later Office of Nuclear Energy) which supported pilot plant concepts of its national laboratories and rejected concepts based on successful experience and lessons learned from that experience. 

Pickard, P., Sulfur-iodine thermochemical cycle, 2006 Annual Merit Review Proc., Hydrogen Production and Delivery, D. Nuclear Energy Initiative, http //www.hydrogen.energy.gov/ annual review06 delivery.html. 

The development of thorium-based nuclear power cycles still faces various problems and requires much more R D to be commercialised. As a nuclear fuel, thorium could play a more important role in the coming decades, partly as it is more abundant on Earth than uranium and also because mined thorium has the potential to be used completely in nuclear reactors, compared with the 0.7% of natural uranium. Its future use as a nuclear source of energy will, however, depend greatly on the technological developments currently investigated in various parts of the world and the availability of and access to conventional uranium resources. 

NAFTA n.a. NEA NEDC NG NGC NGL NGPL NMVOC NOC NUTS North American Free Trade Agreement Not available Nuclear Energy Agency New European Driving Cycle Natural gas Natural gas from coal Natural-gas liquids Natural gas plant liquids Non-methane volatile organic carbons National Oil Company Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics... 

In the conversion of fossil and nuclear energy to electricity, the value of high temperature solution phase thermodynamics in improving plant reliability has been far less obvious than that of classical thermodynamics in predicting Carnot cycle efficiency. Experimental studies under conditions appropriate to modern boiler plant are difficult and with little pressure from designers for such studies this area of thermodynamic study has been seriously neglected until the last decade or two. 

The use of isotopes in biochemistry, particularly radioisotopes, took off after World War II. Developments in electronics and nuclear energy, and the construction of piles in the U.S. and the U.K., enormously improved the production and detection of radioisotopes. At the same time the introduction of paper and ion-exchange chromatography (Chapter 10) revolutionized analytical methods for the separation of low molecular weight compounds, enabling intermediates to be separated rapidly, identified, and estimated. By 1945 strategies for the evaluation of metabolic pathways and cycles were familiar, thanks to the work of Krebs and the pre-war German schools. 

Utgikar V, Thiesen T (2006) Life cycle assessment of high temperature electrolysis for hydrogen production via nuclear energy. Int J Hydrogen Energy 31 939-944... 

The French CEA cooperates with the US DOE under the GEN IV umbrella to develop a thermochemical (iodine-sulphur process) cycle to produce clean Hj from heat from nuclear plants. The US also has a US 6.5 million nuclear energy program to convert hydrogen from high temperature heat nuclear sources (and solar) with a projected cost competitive with gasoline. 

Ewing, R. C. 2004. Environmental impact of the nuclear fuel cycle. In Giere, R. Stille, P. (eds) Energy, Waste, and the Environment a Geochemical Perspective. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 236, 7-23. 

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