1. The document discusses the high costs and safety risks of separating plutonium from spent nuclear fuel for recycling. Plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons, and separating it commercially was a mistake. 2. Breeder reactors, which were meant to recycle plutonium, proved to be much more expensive and unreliable than water-cooled reactors. Recycling plutonium in light water reactors is about 10 times more costly than dry cask storage of spent fuel. 3. Continued reprocessing and dense-packing of spent fuel in storage pools poses safety risks. Pools would be safer if older spent fuel was moved to air-cooled dry casks

1. The economics of plutonium recycle vs. spent fuel storage
Frank von Hippel
Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University and
International Panel on Fissile Material
Panel, New Diplomacy Initiative
Tokyo, 6 November 2015

2. Outline
• The mistake that launched civilian plutonium separation
• The high costs
• The danger from dense-packed spent-fuel storage
• The alternative: dry cask spent fuel storage and why it is safer.

3. Background
• U.S. has declared ~50 tons of weapons plutonium surplus
(~10,000 nuclear bombs)
• Japan has separated ~50 tons of civilian plutonium (~6,000
nuclear bombs)
• Both countries have encountered problems disposing of their
plutonium in MOX.
• Japan proposes to start up Rokkasho plutonium separation
plant with a design capacity of ~ 8 tons/year.

4. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025
Separatedplutonium
(metrictons)
In Japan if RRP operates and MOX delayed
In Europe if MOX delayed
Recycled
In Japan
In Europe
Japan’s MOX program would have to become very successful to
prevent explosive growth of Japan’s stockpile if Rokkasho
Reprocessing Plant operates as planned.

5. Why do we have enough separated civilian (purple)
plutonium for >30,000 Nagasaki weapons?
(Source: Global Fissile Material Report 2015)
10,000
warheads,
(4-8 kg
each)

6. 0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
GlobalNuclearCapacity(GWe)
1975
2015 High
2015 Low
Answer: Fears of uranium scarcity in the 1960s and 1970s led to
proposals to develop “breeder” reactors.
Projected nuclear
capacity (1975, IAEA)
Projected band for nuclear
capacity (IAEA, 2015)
IAEA,
1975
NEA-­‐IAEA,
2014
Estimated Low-cost Uranium
(40-year supply for LWRs)
High
Low

7. 7
U-235 (0.7% of natural uranium)
chain-reacts and provides most of the
energy in current-generation (mostly
water-cooled) reactors.
U-238 (99.3%) doesn’t chain-react but
turns into chain-reacting Pu-239 after it
absorbs a neutron.
Proposed solution: Move from U-235 to U-238 as a fuel

8. Fresh
LWR fuel
95.6 %
U-238
4.4% U-235
92.6%
U-238
U-236
Spent
Fuel
0.8% U-235
1.2% plutonium
5.4% fission products
other radioisotopes
Plutonium in light water reactor spent fuel was to be separated as
startup plutonium for breeder reactors
8

9. Breeder reactors costly and unreliable
Average capacity factor for water-cooled reactors ~ 80%
for sodium-cooled “demonstration” reactors ~25%.
Country Demonstration Reactor Power (Mwe) Lifetime Capacity Factors*
France Superphénix (1985-98) 1200 8% (sodium leaks)
Germany SNR-300 (1991) 300 Did not receive safety license
Japan Monju (1994-) 246 1% (sodium fire)
UK PFR (1975-94) 500 19% (sodium leaks)
USA Clinch River 300 Cancelled
USSR BN-600 (1980-) 560 74% (but 15 sodium fires)
*IAEA Power Reactor Information System
France decided to use its separated plutonium in water-cooled
reactor fuel. Saves ~12% of natural uranium.
Japan decided to do the same.

10. gure 6-2 are recent estimates by the ALMR project of unit costs for privately reprocessing LWR fuel
uction (Taylor et al., 1992; Chang, 1993). Each plant has a throughput of 2,700 Mg/yr, with high-yield
s and volatile fission products. The estimated unit costs are about $500/kg for aqueous reprocessing and
cal reprocessing. The latter is about six-to eightfold below the estimated unit cost of a 800- to 900-Mg/
contemporary plant costs in the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
rent estimates of the unit costs for reprocessing plants constructed in the United States.
Costs of French and
UK reprocessing
plants as of 1992.
Estimates on the
basis of which
France, Japan and
UK built their
reprocessing plants
Reprocessing costs were grossly underestimated by advocates
Nuclear Wastes: Technologies for Separations and
Transmutation (National Academy Press, 1996) p. 117.
X(5-­‐10)

11. Conclusions of Economic Reviews
France (2000). Plutonium and uranium recycle costs five times more than the
savings in LEU fuel costs.*
Today, the cost may be ~10 times because of loss of foreign customers.
Reprocessing costs have become a major issue between Électricité de France
(EDF) and AREVA. EDF refused to renew reprocessing contract in UK.
Japan (2011). Plutonium and uranium recycle cost ten times more than the
savings in LEU fuel costs.**
LEU cost: ¥259,000/kg
MOX cost: ¥3,568,000/kg
[= 8.5x¥372,000 (reprocessing cost) +406,000 (MOX fabrication)]
Yet both countries have chosen to continue with reprocessing because change is
judged too disruptive.
*Report to the Prime Minister [of France]: Economic Forecast Study of the Nuclear Power Option, 2000.
**JAEC, Technical Subcommittee on Nuclear Power, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, etc. Estimation of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Cost, 2011, slide 28.

12. Most countries manage older spent fuel with safe onsite dry cask storage.
(Japan has dry cask storage at Fukushima-Daiichi and Tokai.)
Tokai
U.S. Connecticut Yankee (old picture)
Lingen NPP, Germany
At Fukushima Daiichi
after the tsunami
12
Tokai

13. Operating Rokkasho will cost ~ ¥200 billion/yr. (¥250,000/kg)
~7x cost of buying dry-cask spent fuel storage
¥200 billion/yr.

14. Dry-cask storage also alternative to dense-packed storage pools.
A spent-fuel fire in Fukushima Daiichi Pool #4 could have forced
evacuation of Tokyo (JAEC chair Kondo to Prime Minister Kan)
Used to perform analysis of pool leakage scenarios
Calculations based on several codes and models to p
turn-around time and fidelity
0 9
8642
1 3 5 7
0 9
8642
1 3 5 7
0 9
8642
1 3 5 7
CR
CR
CR CR CR
CR CRCRCR
CR30
0
2
4
6
8
9
1
3
5
7
CR
CRCR
CR
CR
CR
CR
CR
C
E F P M WF P M
UNIT 4 SFP HEAT GENERATION RATE DISTRIBUTION POOL LEVEL FOR VARIOUS
16 0.19 kW
24 0.16 kW
14 0.20 kW
10 0.22 kW
12 0.21 kW
9 0.23 kW
5 0.30 kW
8 0.24 kW
2 0.55 kW
4 0.40 kW
1 1.12 kW
IF 3.60 kW
From reactor shutdown,
end Nov 2010
Fresh fuel
BWR fuel assembly
contains ~ 170 kg U
CRIEPI
Unit 1 2 3 4 5 6
FA in Core (No.)
400 548 548
(MOX 32)
0 548 764
SF in Pool (No.) 292 587 514 1331 946 876
FF in Pool (No.) 100 28 52 204 48 64
Decay
Heat in
Pool
(MW)
March
11,2010
0.18 0.62 0.54 2.26 1.00 0.87
June 11
2010
0.16 0.52 0.46 1.58 0.76 0.73
Condition of Unit 4‘s spent
fuel pool

15. (d)HIGHDENSlTY( PWR) (e)DIRECTIONAL( BWR) ( f 1 CYLINDRICAL ( BWR 1
B4 C I C
NEUTRON
4
4
I
11.
18.5”
I
In case of partial loss of water, high-density-rack storage
makes air cooling ineffective.
If fuel over 5 years old were loaded into dry casks,
safer open-frame racks could be used.
( a 1 OPEN FRAME ( PWR 1
.”
( b 1 CYL
2
12.75”
Safer
Residual water
can block air

16. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates release from fire
in a high-density pool 100 times worse than Fukushima
(average consequences for the Peach Bottom site in Pennsylvania)
Sources. http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1328/ML13282A564.pdf;
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1328/ML13282A563.pdf ,
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/EE/c2ee24183h#!divAbstract
Explanation: Enough hydrogen from zirconium-steam reaction in
high-density pool to destroy reactor building.
High-density
pool
Low-density
pool
Fukushima-
Daiichi release
Release (PBq) 925 4 6-20
Cancer deaths 43,100 1,100 ~1000
Evacuated area (km2) 46,600 221 ~650
Population displaced 10,900,000 72,000 ~100,000

17. Some of the Commissioners on Japan’s Nuclear
Regulation Authority (NRA) understand the danger
On 19 September 2012, in his first press conference, NRA Chairman,
Shunichi Tanaka urged
“Spent fuel not requiring active cooling should be put into dry casks
… for five years or so cooling by water is necessary…I would like to
ask utilities to go along those lines…”
On 29 October 2014, Chairman Tanaka and Commissioner Fuketa urged
the president of Kyushu Electric Power Company, to introduce dry-
cask storage.
If dense-packed pools are dangerous, why does the NRA not order
nuclear power plant operators to follow Chairman Tanaka’s advice?

18. Summary
1. Separating plutonium, a nuclear-weapon material, commercially is a
very bad idea.
2. Breeder reactors much more costly and much less reliable than
water-cooled reactors. After 50 years and more than ¥10 trillion, no
country has commercialized them.
3. Plutonium recycle in light water reactors ~10 times more costly than
spent fuel storage in safe air-cooled casks.
4. Reprocessing persists in 4 weapon states and Japan. (South Korea is
pressing for the same “right” as Japan to reprocess.)
5. Spent fuel pools would be safer if fuel cooled more than 5 years
were downloaded to casks.