Disposal Costs for Advanced CANDU Fuel Cycles

Abstract

The CANDU reactor can burn a wide range of fuels without modification to the reactor system, including natural uranium, slightly enriched uranium, mixed oxide and spent LWR fuels. The economic feasibility of the advanced fuel cycles requires consideration of their disposal costs. Preliminary cost analyses for the disposal of spent CANDU-SEU (Slightly Enriched Uranium) and CANDU-DUPIC (Direct Use of spent PWR fuel In CANDU)fuels have been performed and compared to the internationally published costs for the direct disposal of spent CANDU and LWR fuels. The analyses show significant economic advantages in the disposal costs of CANDU-SEU and CANDU-DUPIC fuels.