Assessment of the disposability of radioactive waste inventories for a range of nuclear fuel cycles: Effect of repository size on disposal cost

Nuclear energy policy is predominantly driven by front-end factors (e.g. capital costs, uranium availability). Though front-end costs dominate the levelised cost of electricity under current economic conditions, the push to develop advanced systems is partially based upon perceived advantages to the ease of disposal (e.g. reduced waste volume, radiotoxic inventory or smaller disposal facility footprint).
Using the fuel cycle modelling tool ORION, and thermal modelling tool BADGER, footprint requirements for high heat generating wastes (spent fuel and/or vitrified high level waste) from five nuclear programme scenarios were compared. Although closed fuel cycles were found to offer a large reduction in disposal facility footprint, the relative cost of constructing such facilities did not fall in proportion. Assessing the effect of disposal cost variation on total project cost for a once through PWR nuclear programme shows that back-end costs do not significantly impact the overall lifetime project cost.
Though the footprint of a disposal facility may be reduced by selecting an advanced fuel cycle, costs to implement such a programme will be considerable and are expected to outweigh any disposal cost reductions. Therefore, apparent benefits to disposal are unlikely to drive selection of advanced fuel cycles based on cost alone.