Fuel Cycles and Radioactive Waste

This area of study is devoted to the development of methods and models (theoretical and/or experimental) for analyzing processes that handle nuclear materials from cradle to grave. The methods and models developed are utilized for evaluating environmental impacts, economics, and proliferation resistance of a fuel cycle, and for designing an optimized fuel-cycle system. Basic research includes the development of deterministic models and the experimental data to support them, probabilistic methods and models and optimization methods. An initial focus is on Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, which aims at improved utilization of repository capacity for civilian spent nuclear fuel from current light-water reactors, with help of systems for separation and transmutation of problematic radionuclides.