Comparison and Screening of NFC Options in View of Sustainable Performance and Waste Management

Abstract

Is it true that the nuclear technology applied to electric energy generation offers a clean, safe, reliable and affordable i.e. sustainable alternative? Yes it is, but its impact on the environment strongly depends on the implementation bearing residual risks due to a human factor, technical failures or natural catastrophes. A full response is therefore difficult and can first be given when the wicked multi-disciplinary problems get well formulated and "solved". These problems have multidimensional nature lying at the interface between: necessary R&D effort, the industrial deployment and the technology impact in view of the environmental sustainability including the management of produced hazardous waste. This enormous complexity indicates that just a description of the problem might represent a problem. The paper proposes a holistic approach to assess the nuclear energy systems potential with respect to sustainable performance applying Multi-criteria decision analysis with a suitable objective tree and a multi-level criteria structure and examines the trading-off techniques for ranking of the alternatives. The framework proposes a multi-criteria and multistakeholders treatment which can be used as a pre-decisional support towards an implementation of nuclear fuel cycles adapted to national preferences and priorities. Proposed approach addresses some aspects of the environmental footprint of nuclear energy systems. Advanced nuclear fuel cycles, previously investigated by the NEA/OECD expert group WASTEMAN, are analyzed as a case study. Sustainability facets of waste management, resource utilization and economics are in focus.Keywords: advanced nuclear fuel cycles; waste management; resource utilization; economics; performance comparison; multi-criteria decision analysis; sensitivity/uncertainty analysis; environmental footprint BackgroundInnovative electrical energy generating technologies should be sustainable that means clean, safe, reliable and affordable and moreover able to preserve resources and minimize liabilities [1]. The nuclear technology option might compete in this sense with other large-scale energy producing technologies as, for instance, those consuming the coal or oil resources [2]. However, similar to the other non-nuclear energy generation options, each nuclear option produces hazardous radioactive waste -called high-level waste (HLW) due to the contained long-living radionuclides. For this reason, HLW should be isolated from the biosphere by a disposal and an enclosure in special facilities, called HLW repositories [3]. Mainly for this reason, nuclear waste management causes in some countries a public concern due to a residual risk of radiotoxic fission products' or minor actinides' migration from casks containing HLW into the environment. This risk which is higher for waste radiotoxic components soluble in water is assessed in the R&D studies on repository safety cases. Another type of threads were: A severe accident of boiling water reactors after an earthquake and a tsunami, which ...