An Economic Analysis of Spent Fuel Management and Storage

Abstract

Spent fuel management is becoming a key issue not only in the countries that have already experienced years of nuclear operation but also in the Asian countries that started nuclear utilization rather lately. This paper summarizes the key aspects that essentially determine optimal conditions for desired spent fuel management strategies from the engineering economic point of view, in both national and regional perspectives. The term desired' is intended to highlight positive and beneficial aspects of such strategies, namely mobile and timely exploitation of spent fuel storage. Among all, the economy of scale, the economy of scope, the learning-by-doing effect, and benefits of R&D are reviewed theoretically and empirically, and the paper overviews to what extent these factors are implemented in solving spent fuel management strategy optimization problem.