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Demonstrating a credible and acceptable way to safely recycle 'used' nuclear fuel will clear a socially acceptable pathway for nuclear fission to be a major low-carbon energy source for this century. Here we advocate for an accelerated timetable for commercial demonstration of Generation IV nuclear technology, via construction of a prototype metal-fueled fast neutron reactor and associated 100 t/year pyroprocessing facility to convert and recycle spent fuel (routinely mischaracterized as "nuclear waste") that has accumulated from decades of lightwater reactor use. Based on the pioneering research and development done during the 'Integral Fast Reactor' (IFR) program at Argonne National Laboratory, 1 a number of synergistic design choices are recommended: (a) a pool-type sodium-cooled reactor; (b) metal fuel based on a uranium-plutonium-zirconium alloy, and (c) recycling using electrorefining and pyroprocessing, thereby enabling the transmutation and repeated reuse of the actinides in the reactor system. We argue that alternative technology options for the coolant, fuel type and recycling system, while sometimes possessing individually attractive features, are challenging to combine into a sufficiently competitive overall system. A reactor blueprint that embodies these key design features, the General Electric-Hitachi 380 MWe PRISM, 2 based on the IFR, is ready for a commercial-prototype demonstration. A two-pronged approach for completion by 2020 could progress by a detailed design and demonstration of a 100 t/year pyroprocessing facility for conversion of spent oxide fuel from light-water reactors 3 into metal fuel for fast reactors, followed by construction of a prototype PRISM as a commercial-scale demonstration plant, with an initial focus on secure disposition of separated plutonium stocks. Ideally, this could be achieved via an international collaboration. Several countries have expressed great interest in such collaboration. Once demonstrated, this prototype would provide an international test facility for any concept improvements. It is expected to achieve significant advances in reactor safety, reliability, fuel resource sustainability, management of long-term waste, improved proliferation resistance, and economics.

Abstract. Reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is advocated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To achieve this target, countries have opted for renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar. These renewables will be unable to supply the needed large quantities of energy to run industrial societies sustainably, economically and reliably because they are inherently intermittent, depending on flexible backup power or on energy storage for delivery of base-load quantities of electrical energy. The backup power is derived in most cases from combustion of natural gas. Intermittent energy sources, if used in this way, do not meet the requirements of sustainability, nor are they economically viable because they require redundant, underutilized investment in capacity both for generation and for transmission. Because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, the equivalent carbon dioxide value of methane may cause gas-fired stations to emit more greenhouse gas than coal-fired plants of the same power for currently reported leakage rates of the natural gas. Likewise, intermittent wind/solar photovoltaic systems backed up by gas-fired power plants also release substantial amounts of carbon-dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas to make such a combination environmentally unacceptable. In the long term, nuclear fission technology is the only known energy source that is capable of delivering the needed large quantities of energy safely, economically, reliably and in a sustainable way, both environmentally and as regards the available resource-base.

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