Washington (Platts)--30Sep2008

Assurances on disposition of spent nuclear fuel could be more important
than guarantees of fresh fuel in convincing new nuclear countries to rely on
international supply arrangements rather than pursuing their own uranium
enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing programs, according to a study released
Tuesday by the US and Russian national science academies.

For several years, there have discussions about establishing an
international system so that countries starting or considering nuclear
programs do not also embark on enrichment and reprocessing programs, since
this could give countries the capability to produce material -- high-enriched
uranium and plutonium, respectively -- that can be used in nuclear weapons.

Most of those discussions, however, have focused on the front end of the
nuclear fuel cycle -- in particular, by providing assurances of supply of
low-enriched uranium fuel at a reasonable price.

But the report says that such front-end mechanisms "may only modestly
change countries' incentives to establish enrichment facilities," in part
because "the existing international market provides strong assurances of
supply."

Assurances dealing with the back end, the report says, are potentially
more powerful, "because assured take-back [of spent fuel] could mean that
countries would not need to incur the cost and uncertainty of trying to
establish their own repositories for spent nuclear fuel or nuclear waste."

The US, Russia and other suppliers should increase their emphasis on the
back-end arrangements, the report says. As the report notes, Russia already
has the legal arrangements in place to bring in foreign spent fuel.

But over the past several years, Russian officials have given conflicting
indications on how enthusiastic they are about the idea. Several of them have
suggested that the launching of such an effort is several years away, at best.

Russia and the US, the report says, should work together to put such
arrangements in place "with the fuel taken back to Russia for now, or to the
United States as well if circumstances someday make that possible."

On a related aspect of the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, the report
says, in "most cases, reprocessing is not economic under current conditions."
It may be when "economically recoverable uranium resources diminish compared
to demand" or there is "widespread deployment" of fast-neutron reactors, which
use plutonium-based fuels, the report says.

Because of the proliferation risk from plutonium, "[s]pent fuel should
only be reprocessed when its constituents are needed for fuel, or when
reprocessing is necessary for safety reasons," the report says.

--Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com