Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee

Report to the Full Commission

Updated Report

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future 

Washington, DC

January 2012
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee i January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

PREAMBLE

The Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s 

Nuclear Future (BRC) was formed to examine issues related to the potential of existing and future 

reactor and fuel cycle technologies and related research and development (R&D) programs. The 

Subcommittee was co-chaired by the Honorable Pete Domenici and Dr. Per Peterson and included the 

following Commissioners: Dr. Albert Carnesale, Susan Eisenhower, Dr. Allison MacFarlane, Dr. Richard 

Meserve, Dr. Ernest Moniz, and the Honorable Phil Sharp. BRC co-chairs, Rep. Lee Hamilton and Gen. 

Brent Scowcroft, participated as members ex officio.

The scope of the Subcommittee’s work is outlined in the BRC’s charter, which states that the 

Commission will “provide advice, evaluate alternatives, and make recommendations for a new plan” to 

address a series of issues related to managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including 

specifically: “Evaluation of existing fuel cycle technologies and R&D programs. Criteria for evaluation 

should include cost, safety, resource utilization and sustainability, and the promotion of nuclear 

nonproliferation and counter-terrorism goals.”

Subcommittee members met three times between July 2010 and October 2010 to hear testimony from 

experts and stakeholders and to discuss the issues before the Subcommittee. Subcommittee members 

also traveled to France, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom in early 2011 to visit advanced reactor 

and fuel cycle facilities in those countries and hear about their programs. Within the United States, 

Subcommittee members visited Department of Energy (DOE) facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory

(INL), at the Hanford, Washington site and at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. A wide 

variety of organizations, interest groups, and individuals provided input to the Subcommittee at 

meetings and through the submission of written materials (copies of all of these submissions, along with 

records and transcripts of past meetings, are available at the BRC website www.brc.gov). The 

Subcommittee benefitted greatly from these inputs, which spanned a range of issues and reflected a 

wide diversity of perspectives. Some commenters urged us to recommend the immediate cessation of 

nuclear power production and the resulting generation of nuclear waste while others voiced support for

a major expansion of nuclear power to include the extensive use of reprocessing technologies.

Reflecting additional insights gained during the public comment periods for our Subcommittee’s draft 

report (released June 20, 2011) and the full Commission’s draft report (released July 29, 2011), this 

updated report highlights the Subcommittee’s conclusions and articulates the set of consensus 

recommendations we forwarded to the full Commission. We are indebted to the many people who 

offered their expertise, advice and guidance throughout our deliberations and in the process of 

completing this report.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee ii January 2012

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee was formed to respond to the charge—set forth 

in the charter of the BRC—to evaluate existing fuel cycle technologies and R&D programs in terms of 

multiple criteria. According to the charter: “Criteria for evaluation should include cost, safety, resource 

utilization and sustainability, and the promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and counter-terrorism 

goals.” Given the Commission’s specific focus on policies for managing of the back end of the nuclear 

fuel cycle, the Subcommittee also addressed the closely related question of whether any currently 

available reactor and fuel cycle technologies, or any not-yet commercial technologies that are now 

under development, have the potential to change either the fundamental nature of the nuclear waste 

management challenge we confront over the next several decades or the approach the United States 

should take to implement a plan for the storage and ultimate disposition of spent nuclear fuel and highlevel radioactive waste. 

To answer these questions, the Subcommittee reviewed the most authoritative available information on 

advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies, including information on the potential to improve existing 

light-water reactor (LWR) technology and the once-through fuel cycle, as well as options for partially or 

fully closing the nuclear fuel cycle by reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel. We held a series of 

public meetings where we received testimony from experts and stakeholders, visited advanced reactor 

and fuel cycle facilities in the United States and abroad, and collected a wide variety of inputs from 

organizations, interest groups, and individuals via our website and in person. We also reviewed the 

current research plan and proposed budget of the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the adequacy of 

existing regulatory and legal frameworks to accommodate new reactor and fuel cycle technologies and 

facilities. It is important to emphasize at the outset that the Subcommittee did not undertake original 

research on the merits of different technologies and fuel cycle options; rather, we relied on several 

existing studies from a variety of reputable sources. Conducting a wholly new assessment at the level of 

detail and technical rigor needed to meaningfully augment the results of previous assessments was 

deemed unrealistic given the scope and resources of the BRC as constituted and is in any case not 

necessary to fulfill the charge to the Subcommittee as we understand it.

As this Subcommittee was writing its draft report, we witnessed the unfolding of a severe nuclear 

accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan. These events have underscored the 

importance of safety as a primary criterion in the development and application of nuclear technology. 

They have also underscored the importance of treating spent fuel management and storage as a central 

part of the safety regime. Technological advances hold promise for improving the safety of nuclear 

energy systems—ensuring that this promise is realized must be a priority of U.S. nuclear policy, with 

respect to both research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) investments and deployment 

decisions. 

The Subcommittee’s central conclusion, detailed at greater length in the pages that follow, is two-fold:
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Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

(1) Advances in nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies may hold promise for achieving 

substantial benefits in terms of broadly held safety, waste disposal, economic, environmental, 

and energy security goals. To capture these benefits, the United States should continue to 

pursue a program of nuclear energy RD&D both to improve the safety and performance of 

existing technologies and to develop new technologies, such as those suggested in this report,

that could offer significant advantages in terms of the multiple evaluation criteria identified in 

our charter (i.e., safety, cost, resource utilization and sustainability, waste management, and 

nonproliferation and counter-terrorism).

(2) No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technologies—including 

current or potential reprocessing and recycle technologies—have the potential to fundamentally 

alter the waste management challenge1 this nation confronts over at least the next several 

decades, if not longer. Put another way, we do not believe that new technology developments 

in the next three to four decades will change the underlying need for an integrated strategy that 

combines safe, interim storage of spent nuclear fuel with expeditious progress toward siting and 

licensing a permanent disposal facility or facilities. Even the most optimistic implementation of 

a closed fuel cycle (i.e. fast reactors and reprocessing) and advanced reactor technologies will 

not obviate the need for a geologic repository. This is particularly true of defense high-level 

wastes and some forms of government-owned spent fuel that can and should be prioritized for 

direct disposal at an appropriate repository. For the reasons stated in the preceding bullet, 

however, we believe that RD&D on advanced fuel cycles must be continued and should not be 

deferred for decades.

It is important to note that both of the above points stand independently of any conclusion one might 

reach about the desirability of closing the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. The Subcommittee 

could not reach consensus on this issue, and the comments we received on our draft report reinforce 

the fact that there is also no consensus among stakeholders and the public on the desirability of closing 

the fuel cycle. As a group we still conclude that it is premature at this point for the United States to 

commit irreversibly to any particular fuel cycle as a matter of government policy. Rather, there is a 

benefit to preserving and developing new options. RD&D should continue on a range of reactor and fuel 

cycle technologies, described in this report, that have the potential to deliver societal benefits at 

different times in the future and to utilize a larger fraction of the potential energy content of uranium 

and thorium. If and when technology advances change the balance of market and policy considerations 

to favor a shift away from the once-through fuel cycle, that shift will be driven by a combination of 

factors, including—but hardly limited to—its waste management impacts. In fact, safety, economics, 

and energy security are likely to be more important drivers of future fuel cycle decisions than waste 

management concerns per se.

 1 The waste management challenge is twofold: First, the United States needs to site and operate a permanent geologic disposal 

facility or facilities. Second, the United States needs to safely store spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW) until 

such time as permanent disposal capacity is available, which practically speaking—especially given the existing backlog of SNF 

and HLW—implies storage on a scale of multiple decades to a century (or possibly longer).
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In light of these central conclusions, our recommendations are summarized below.

Recommendation #1: The U.S. government, in collaboration with the private sector, should 

encourage early and frequent interaction with regulators and provide stable, long-term RD&D 

(research, development, and demonstration) support for advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies 

that have the potential to offer substantial benefits relative to currently available technologies in 

terms of safety, cost, resource utilization and sustainability, the promotion of nuclear nonproliferation 

and counter-terrorism goals, and waste storage and disposal needs. A well-designed federal RD&D 

program is critical to enabling the U.S. to regain its role as the global leader of nuclear technology 

innovation and should be attentive to opportunities in two distinct realms:

1) Near-term improvements in the safety and performance of existing LWR technology as 

currently deployed in the United States and elsewhere as part of a once-through fuel cycle, 

and in the technologies available for storing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level 

waste.

2) Longer-term efforts to advance potential “game-changing” nuclear energy technologies and 

systems that could achieve very large benefits across multiple evaluation criteria compared to 

current technologies and systems. Examples might include (a) fast-spectrum reactors 

demonstrating passive safety characteristics that are capable of sustained actinide recycling and 

that use uranium more efficiently; (b) reactors that—by using molten salt or gas coolants—

achieve very high temperatures and can thereby supply process heat for hydrogen production or 

other purposes; (c) small modular reactors with novel designs for improved safety characteristics 

and the potential to change the capital cost and financing structure for new reactors; or (d) a 

system that does not utilize enrichment, reprocessing, or land-based uranium recovery. Going 

forward, the RD&D program should seek to keep options open until it is possible, first, to make a 

defensible selection of technologies and second, to base the selection on the capabilities of the 

new technologies to meet regulatory and policy requirements for safety, environmental 

protection, security, and nonproliferation; to attract commercial investment; and to compete 

effectively in the commercial marketplace.

In making this recommendation and the one that follows, the Subcommittee is mindful that federal 

RD&D funding of all kinds will be under enormous budget pressure in the years ahead. It will therefore 

be especially important to focus scarce public resources on addressing key gaps or needs in the U.S. 

nuclear RD&D infrastructure and to leverage effectively the full range of resources that exist in industry, 

the national laboratories, and the academic community. Furthermore, while the charge of this 

Subcommittee is to make recommendations to the government, we also want to clearly emphasize the 

importance and value of continuing and stable industry RD&D investment in reactor and fuel cycle 

technologies.

In the effort to target scarce resources as effectively as possible, the Subcommittee recommends 

funding well-designed, multi-purpose national scientific user test facilities,

2 following the model of the 

Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) Scientific User Facility at INL, that can be used to advance knowledge in 

 2 National scientific user facilities (NSUF) provide specialized structures, equipment, instrumentation and expertise that enable 

scientists and other users to carry out experiments that could not be done in their own labs.
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several areas of inquiry. Such national user facilities exemplify the kind of RD&D infrastructure that 

could yield particularly high returns on public investment. 

Recommendation #2: The Subcommittee concurs with the recent findings of the President’s Council of 

Advisors on Science and Technologies (PCAST) concerning the need for better coordination of energy 

policies and programs across the federal government; for a substantial increase in federal support of 

energy-related research, development, demonstration, and deployment; and for efforts to explore 

new revenue options to provide this support.3

 

Specifically, the recent PCAST report endorsed an earlier proposal by the American Energy Innovation 

Council4 to provide $16 billion in annual federal support for energy technology innovation—an increase 

of $10 billion per year over current funding levels, with all of that increase coming from new revenue 

sources. Of this $16 billion-per-year total, PCAST recommends that $12 billion be directed to basic R&D 

and $4 billion to large-scale demonstration projects. The DOE’s budget for nuclear energy R&D in recent 

years has totaled approximately $500 million per year. Additionally, the Subcommittee notes that the 

recent MIT study estimates that about $1 billion per year is appropriate for supporting the necessary 

nuclear R&D and infrastructure programs.5

 However, the Subcommittee does believe that judgments 

about the appropriate level of funding will ultimately depend on the overall resources available for 

energy innovation and must be made in the context of a broader assessment of energy policy goals and 

the potential of different energy technology options. The Subcommittee notes that an increased RD&D 

contribution from the private sector is likely to be encouraged by clearly articulated and stable national 

energy policies, coupled with a regulatory environment enabled by anticipatory research to support the 

early development of regulations needed for advanced nuclear technologies.

Recommendation #3: A portion of federal nuclear energy RD&D resources should be directed to the 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to accelerate a regulatory framework and supporting 

anticipatory research for novel components of advanced nuclear energy systems and potential 

geologic disposal sites. An increased degree of confidence that new systems can be successfully 

licensed is important for lowering barriers to commercial investment and to successful siting efforts.

The Subcommittee believes that NRC efforts in this area—including new efforts in anticipatory research, 

some of which are already underway—should receive 5 to 10 percent of total federal funding for reactor 

and fuel cycle technology RD&D.6

 While 5 to 10 percent would represent a relatively small fraction of 

total federal investment in nuclear energy RD&D, it would amount to a large increase in the amount of 

funding devoted to developing an improved regulatory framework for new nuclear energy technologies 

 3 President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Report to the President on Accelerating the Pace of 

Change in Energy Technologies Through an Integrated Federal Energy Policy. November 2010. Available at: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-energy-tech-report.pdf. 4

American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC), A Business Plan for American’s Energy Future, available at:

http://www.americanenergyinnovation.org/full-report. 5 The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. 6 Almost 90 percent of the NRC’s budget comes from fees charged to licensees with only 10 percent coming from federal 

appropriations. It is important to note we are emphasizing the increase in funds for the development of the necessary 

regulatory frameworks comes from the government and not from licensee fees.
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and would further strengthen the NRC’s scientific and technical capability to act as an independent 

regulator. Finally, we support the NRC’s current risk-informed, performance-based approach to 

developing regulations for novel components and operations of advanced nuclear energy systems.

Recommendation #4: The United States should continue to take a leadership role in international 

efforts to address global nonproliferation concerns and to improve the safety and security of nuclear 

facilities and materials worldwide. This could include support for multinational, industrial-scale fuel 

cycle facilities; joint efforts with other countries to improve security and accountability technologies 

and protocols for nuclear materials and capabilities; and improvements in existing multilateral 

agreement frameworks.

The Subcommittee heard a range of views on whether and to what extent U.S. fuel cycle decisions and 

policies have influenced fuel cycle decisions made by other nations over the past several decades. 

Whatever view one has about the past, the Subcommittee believes that it is important for the United 

States to play a leadership role in technological and diplomatic efforts to reduce proliferation risks and 

improve the safety and security of nuclear materials and facilities worldwide. This should occur both via 

the U.S. nuclear community’s involvement in international efforts to advance better nuclear energy 

technologies and management approaches, and through U.S. participation in international 

nonproliferation and nuclear security regimes and initiatives. The Fukushima accident, in particular, 

should prompt concerted efforts by international organizations, nuclear industry regulators, technology 

vendors, nuclear system operators, and technical support organizations to promote the safe application of 

nuclear energy systems and the safe storage of nuclear wastes in all countries that pursue this technology.

The Subcommittee recognizes the importance of continued development of modern safeguards and 

security technologies for application in existing facilities and in combination with safeguards-by-design 

approaches for new facilities. Maintaining accurate knowledge of the location and inventories of 

nuclear materials is a common requirement for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, 

physical security, and safety. Technical innovations to support nuclear safeguards and security, 

particularly those of verification and material accountancy, containment and surveillance, material 

control, and environmental monitoring are of high value for providing assurances of compliance with 

the IAEA safeguards regime and with emerging international norms for physical security, and should be 

maintained through existing efforts of the federal government, both domestically and in collaboration 

with international partners.

While the work of the Subcommittee focused on advanced reactor and fuel cycle and associated 

technologies, we also recognize that the goals of nonproliferation and nuclear security cannot be 

achieved by primarily technological means. Rather, success in this area depends heavily on the 

effectiveness of diplomatic arrangements to strengthen the current nonproliferation regime, such as 

broader adoption of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol; promoting policies, technologies, and fuel cycle 

choices that reduce proliferation risks while also taking steps to improve the security of nuclear 

materials and facilities; and continued use of bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements as effective 

policy tools.
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With respect to U.S. policy for the nuclear fuel cycle, this Subcommittee believes that the establishment 

of multinational or regional fuel cycle facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards could be a very 

positive development, giving countries an option to enjoy more reliable access to the benefits of nuclear 

power while simultaneously reducing proliferation risks. The Subcommittee wishes to stress that our 

support for multinational management of such facilities should not be interpreted as support for 

additional countries becoming involved in enrichment or reprocessing facilities, but rather reflects our 

view that if these capabilities were to spread, it would be far preferable—from a security and 

nonproliferation standpoint—to do so under multinational ownership, management, safeguards, and 

controls. Similarly, spent fuel take-away arrangements7 would allow countries, particularly those with 

relatively small national programs, to avoid the very costly and politically difficult step of providing for 

waste disposal on their soil. Fuel take-away could also provide a strong incentive for emerging nuclear 

nations to take key actions, such as ratifying the IAEA Additional Protocol, that can strengthen 

nonproliferation and further isolate the current small number of problematic proliferant states. 

The U.S. government and nuclear industry have implemented a relatively small but successful initiative 

to ship used foreign research reactor fuel to U.S. facilities for storage and disposal. This program has 

demonstrated meaningful nonproliferation and security benefits. A similar capability to accept spent 

fuel from foreign commercial reactors, in cases where the President would choose to authorize such 

imports for reasons of U.S. national security, would be desirable within a larger policy framework that 

creates a clear path for the safe and permanent disposition of U.S. spent fuel. Unfortunately, the failure 

to develop broadly accepted domestic nuclear waste management strategies hampers U.S. 

nonproliferation policy choices in the context of nuclear fuel cycles. Government support for limited 

fuel supply and take-away initiatives to advance U.S. national security interests could change the way 

disposal facilities are perceived by the public and by the national security community—not simply as 

final resting places for nuclear waste, but as essential elements of a comprehensive strategy for 

maintaining the nuclear energy option while simultaneously addressing proliferation and security 

concerns.

Implicit in the charter of the BRC is the recognition that any discussion of new reactor and fuel cycle 

technologies must be framed in terms of widely held policy objectives—objectives that are relevant not 

only to the future of the U.S. civilian nuclear power industry, but to our nation’s ability to advance a 

much broader set of social, economic, energy, environmental, and national security goals. We should be 

interested in new reactor and fuel-cycle technologies to the extent that they offer tangible benefits 

compared to currently available technologies and to the extent they make it possible to maximize the 

energy contribution from nuclear power while also minimizing associated costs and risks. In other 

words, the Subcommittee takes the view that future decisions concerning the development and 

deployment of advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies should be driven by broader energy policy 

objectives, rather than by any a priori commitment to a particular system or fuel cycle option.

 7 Spent fuel take-away arrangements are broadly defined as negotiated agreements for governments with fuel cycle capabilities 

to assume liability for supplied or obligated fuel and develop permanent disposition solutions for managing used fuel in concert 

with countries seeking nuclear energy. 
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Un-tethered from these underlying policy objectives, technology discussions too often devolve into 

debates between proponents of one system versus another or, in the nuclear context, between 

proponents of one fuel cycle or reactor design versus another. Whether the United States should adopt 

the long-term strategic goal of closing the nuclear fuel cycle, in particular, has been a contentious and 

much-debated question for decades. Members of the Subcommittee hold a range of views on the 

subject. Other countries (notably France, Russia and Japan) have determined that energy security or 

other policy goals take precedence over the often conflicting goal of minimizing energy costs. They have 

concluded that the higher short-term costs of developing and deploying advanced nuclear systems are 

justified in order to achieve their long-term policy aims, or perhaps they assume higher future prices of 

uranium and enrichment and lower costs for reprocessing. However, as the wide spectrum of 

comments on the Subcommittee’s draft report supporting and opposing different fuel cycle options

have indicated, it would be extremely difficult and probably premature for the United States to attempt 

to settle that question at this point in time. Though research efforts to date have yielded several 

promising reactor designs and fuel cycle concepts, there are a number of remaining uncertainties—

encompassing questions not only of technical performance, cost, commercial viability, and proliferation 

and security impacts, but also questions about how the specific attributes of different options will mesh 

with economic and social conditions that are continuously evolving and with the uncertain trajectory of 

nuclear power utilization in the future. 

In contrast, there is much less uncertainty about the underlying energy and nuclear technology 

challenges we face in the next few decades. Even in the aftermath of the Fukushima incident, which has 

caused some rethinking about reactor safety issues, there is far more consensus, reflected in comments 

on the Subcommittee’s draft report, about what would constitute desirable outcomes. The safety, cost, 

resource utilization and sustainability, security and nonproliferation, and waste management of nuclear 

energy systems are sure to remain paramount concerns that—together with broader questions of public 

acceptance and overall competitiveness with other energy resources—will be key to the nuclear 

industry’s long-term prospects, not only in the United States but worldwide. Looking beyond nuclear 

power to the larger set of energy issues, the challenges are well-identified and even more daunting.

At a global level, the central question is how to reconcile overall energy demand, including rapidly rising

energy consumption in the developing world, with emerging environmental and resource constraints 

and without impeding economic development, exacerbating geopolitical tensions, or increasing the 

potential for national and regional conflicts. At a national level, the challenge for the United States is to 

position itself to meet future energy needs in ways that are also congruent with re-establishing and 

sustaining a vigorous domestic economy, maintaining global technological and scientific leadership, 

protecting public health and the environment, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and reducing 

energy-related national security risks and terrorism threats.

The analysis is further complicated not only because of the need to chart a path that balances a diverse 

set of goals, but also the need to evaluate these goals across a diverse set of activities. The full fuel cycle 

involves at the least resource recovery, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactors, storage, and 

disposal, with the possible addition of reprocessing/recycling capabilities. Fuel cycles should be 

analyzed as an interconnected system in which each element must be compatible with and support the 
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other elements. Our national objectives would not be served by the development of reactors that are 

very efficient, but that do not mesh, for example, with a reprocessing or disposal system. Thus, all the 

components in an advanced fuel cycle should be examined as part of a system in which all the 

components should work together. 

In sum, the Subcommittee concludes it is both more important and more productive at this time to 

focus on designing and implementing a nuclear research, development, and demonstration strategy that 

makes effective use of scarce resources and is continuously and transparently responsive to the broader 

policy objectives about which we know we already have broad agreement as opposed to seeking 

consensus on the merits of particular technology and fuel cycle pathways. Our full report elaborates 

further on these issues and outlines the Subcommittee’s findings regarding the potential advantages 

and disadvantages of different reactor and fuel cycle options. 
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CONTENTS

PREAMBLE...................................................................................................................................................... i

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................. ii

LIST OF ACRONYMS.....................................................................................................................................xiii

1. INTRODUCTION AND STRUCTURE OF REPORT................................................................................... 1

2. NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE BACKGROUND................................................................................................. 3

2.1 A Brief Review of Nuclear Power Development in the United States................................... 3

2.2 A Primer on Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology................................................................... 6

2.3 Status of Nuclear Reactors and Nuclear Fuel Cycle Developments in the 

United States and Abroad ................................................................................................... 17

2.4 Key Findings......................................................................................................................... 23

3. EVALUTION OF FUEL CYCLE ALTERNATIVES ..................................................................................... 24

3.1 Context of the Analysis........................................................................................................ 24

3.2 Criteria for Comparing Nuclear Energy Systems................................................................. 25

3.3 Challenges in Comparing Nuclear Energy Systems ............................................................. 29

3.4 Comparing Fuel Cycle and Nuclear Energy System Options ............................................... 30

3.5 Summary Comparison ......................................................................................................... 48

3.6 Key Findings......................................................................................................................... 51

4. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ....................................................................................................... 53

4.1 Background.......................................................................................................................... 53

4.2 The DOE Nuclear R&D Roadmap, Nuclear Programs, and RD&D Budget........................... 54

4.3 Industry-funded Nuclear Energy R&D................................................................................. 61

4.4 NRC R&D and Advanced Technology Licensing Efforts....................................................... 61

4.5 R&D Infrastructure in the United States—Existing Capacity and Future Needs................. 63

4.6 Addressing the Challenges Facing the U.S. Nuclear Energy RD&D Program....................... 67

4.7 Key Findings......................................................................................................................... 71
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5. INTERNATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS ................................................................................................. 73

5.1 International Reactor Safety ............................................................................................... 73

5.2 Nonproliferation Considerations......................................................................................... 74

5.3 Security and Counter-terrorism .......................................................................................... 82

5.4 Key Findings......................................................................................................................... 84

6. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 85

FIGURES

Figure 1. Median Design Electrical Rating (DER) Capacity Factor of the U.S. Reactor Fleet (1974-2009)...5

Figure 2. U.S. Nuclear Worker Lost-Time Injury Rate (1997-2010)..............................................................6

Figure 3. Generic Nuclear Fuel Cycle ...........................................................................................................7

Figure 4. The Once-through Nuclear Fuel Cycle ..........................................................................................8

Figure 5. Example Fuel Assembly.................................................................................................................9

Figure 6. Workers Handling Fresh Nuclear Fuel Assemblies........................................................................9

Figure 7. Elements of Spent Nuclear Fuel..................................................................................................10

Figure 8. Modified Open Nuclear Fuel Cycle..............................................................................................14

Figure 9. Fully-Closed Nuclear Fuel Cycle with (Sustained) Recycle ..........................................................15

Figure 10. Location of U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors and Their Years of Operation..............18

Figure 11. Temperatures Required for Various Industrial Applications and Outlet Temperatures 

of Various Reactor Designs. ........................................................................................................................31

Figure 12. DOE R&D Funding Levels Fiscal Year 1992 - 2011.....................................................................58

Figure 13. Worldwide Distribution of Civil Nuclear Energy Generation Capacity in 2010.........................79

TABLES

Table 1. Operating Nuclear Power Units by Reactor Type, Worldwide..................................................... 17

Table 2. Nuclear Power Reactor Statistics Worldwide............................................................................... 19

Table 3. Fuel Cycle Facilities Directly Regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ................. 21

Table 4. International Current and Planned Industrial Reprocessing Capacity ......................................... 23
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Table 5. A Comparison of the Existing Once-Through, Conventional Light-Water Reactor Fuel Cycle 

with Representative Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems in the Long Term..................................... 33

Table 6. FY 2010 Budget and FY 2012 Budget Request for the DOE Nuclear RD&D Program................... 59

Table 7. Summary of Nuclear R&D Facility Priorities................................................................................. 64
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LIST OF ACRONYMS

ALWR advanced light water reactor

ATR Advanced Test Reactor

BRC Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

BWR boiling water reactor

DOE U.S. Department of Energy

DU depleted uranium

EPRI Electric Power Research Institute

FR fast reactor

FY fiscal year

GTCC greater than class ‘C’ (waste)

GWd gigawatt-days

GWe gigawatt (electric)

HLW high-level waste

HTR high temperature reactor

INL Idaho National Laboratory

INPO Institute of Nuclear Power Operations

IT information technology

LLW low-level waste

LWR light water reactor

MC&A material control and accountability

MOC modified open (fuel) cycle

MOX mixed oxide (fuel)

MW megawatt

MWe megawatt (electric)

MTHM metric tons of heavy metal

MTU metric tons of uranium

NEI Nuclear Energy Institute

NNSA National Nuclear Security Administration

NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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OT once-through (fuel cycle)

PEIS programmatic environmental impact statement

PUREX plutonium uranium extraction

PWR pressurized water reactor

R&D research and development

RD&D research, development, and demonstration

SNF spent nuclear fuel

TMI Three Mile Island

TRU transuranic

WIPP Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
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1. INTRODUCTION AND STRUCTURE OF REPORT

As directed by the BRC’s charter, the Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee undertook to 

evaluate alternative nuclear energy systems according to qualitative criteria, all of which have direct 

relevance to the broader policy goals discussed in this and other BRC reports. The Subcommittee 

released its draft report on June 20, 2011, and subsequently engaged in an extensive effort to gather 

relevant information from a diverse set of sources and stakeholders in which to inform this updated

report.

Given the focus of the Commission’s work as a whole, we paid particular attention to the implications of 

different reactor and fuel cycle alternatives for managing spent nuclear fuel although by the nature of 

the criteria, waste considerations are only one of several drivers for future technology decisions. 

Specifically, we looked at the following criteria: 

• Safety of reactors and fuel cycle facilities,

• Waste management,

• Cost,

• Sustainability,

• Promoting nuclear nonproliferation goals, and

• Promoting counter-terrorism (physical security) goals.

To organize our inquiry we began by identifying four broad strategies for alternative nuclear energy 

systems: the once-through fuel cycle as currently practiced, an advanced once-through fuel cycle, a 

modified open fuel cycle, and a fully closed fuel cycle. 

Our findings concerning the potential advantages and disadvantages of specific technology options 

within each of these four broad categories are summarized in Section 3 of this report, which also 

provides a more detailed discussion of the criteria we applied in undertaking this (mostly) qualitative 

assessment. In many cases, more detailed and technically rigorous treatments are available in BRC 

commissioned papers (www.brc.gov) and other comparative analyses conducted in recent years by the 

National Research Council, DOE and others. Before turning to a discussion of different technology and 

fuel cycle options, however, we begin by providing some background and context. Chapter 2 of this 

report provides a very brief review of the history of nuclear technology development in the United 

States and worldwide, together with an overview of the characteristics and features that distinguish 

different reactor technology and fuel cycle systems.

Later sections of this report discuss the current federal nuclear RD&D program and identify potential 

RD&D needs and priorities going forward (section 4) and then return (in section 5) to the specific policy 

issues that have a large international dimension—specifically safety, nonproliferation, and counter-
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terrorism (including physical protection). In all of these sections, we have benefited from comments 

received from members of the public and other stakeholders on our draft report. There were areas 

where public input reflected a broad general consensus. This is not to say that the comments we 

received were in perfect agreement on any topic, but there was a high degree of concurrence on a 

number of key points:

• Safety is paramount to the continued operation of nuclear power plants and the adoption of 

new nuclear technologies,

• The United States should strengthen its leadership role in nuclear technology and prevention of 

nuclear proliferation (although the actions recommended to exercise said leadership varied

widely), and

• The United States should invest more in energy technologies to help strengthen our energy 

security (again, the recommended technologies varied widely).

Additionally, it was apparent from the public input that there are divergent views on some issues, 

particularly:

• The continued utilization of nuclear power,

• The closing of the nuclear fuel cycle and the adoption of reprocessing technologies,

• The pros and cons of reprocessing technologies as currently deployed,

• The goals and direction of the DOE’s nuclear RD&D program,

• The U.S. government’s role in supporting nuclear (and broader energy) technology 

development,

• The success of previous advanced reactor technology demonstrations, and

• The level of influence and ability the United States still has to prevent nuclear weapons

proliferation.

The Subcommittee is grateful for this input. We recognize that continued efforts to engage and learn 

from a larger and more diverse set of stakeholders are crucial to enable our nation to achieve its policy 

objectives with respect to nuclear energy and technology development generally and with respect to 

nuclear waste management in particular.
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2. NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE BACKGROUND

2.1 A Brief Review of Nuclear Power Development in the United States

The first demonstration of nuclear fission in a reactor occurred in a facility constructed on the floor of a 

squash court at the University of Chicago in 1942. Fission technology was then used to produce nuclear 

materials for the atomic weapons that ended World War II. After World War II, scientists involved in 

this work began developing peaceful uses for atomic energy, focusing primarily on electricity generation 

for industry, commerce, and household use. President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech before 

the United Nations in 1953 heralded the promise of peaceful worldwide application of atomic power 

while also proposing means to limit its future use as a weapon.

During the early years of civilian nuclear power development a large number of test and demonstration 

programs examined most of the plausible pathways for harnessing nuclear power. Early progress was 

led by the Naval Nuclear Propulsion program, which built and launched the first nuclear powered 

submarine, the USS Nautilus, in 1955. Parallel efforts on experimental reactor designs in Idaho, and a 

land-based application of Nautilus reactor technology at Shippingport, Pennsylvania demonstrated the 

potential for practical, commercial-scale generation of nuclear electricity. During the early years, the 

U.S. government maintained leadership and ultimate control of these developments, but advocates for 

commercializing nuclear technology for power generation, particularly in Congress, also joined efforts to

transition the technology to the private sector. 

Commercial nuclear power began to expand rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s such that by 1970, 

22 reactors were operating in the United States and 50 more were under construction. Although 

reactors fueled by low enriched uranium, and cooled and moderated by light water, were the norm, a 

few demonstrations were made of liquid-metal cooled reactors fueled by uranium and plutonium, as 

well as high-temperature gas reactors cooled by helium and moderated by graphite, and a fluid-fueled 

molten salt reactor (see section 2.2 for reactor descriptions).

From about the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, it was assumed that uranium scarcity would require spent 

fuel from U.S. commercial power reactors to be reprocessed, with the materials recovered from 

reprocessing then used to fuel reactors that produced more fissile material than they consumed 

(so-called “breeder” reactors). However, a series of events during the 1970s slowed and fundamentally 

changed the course of nuclear energy development:

• The 1973 Arab oil embargo took a severe toll on the U.S. economy. In its wake, the rate of 

growth in U.S. energy consumption dropped sharply from a pre-embargo level of 7 percent per 

year to 2–3 percent per year.8

• The testing of a nuclear explosive device in India in 1974, which changed perceptions of the 

proliferation risks associated with particular nuclear fuel cycles.

 8 Congressional Budget Office, “Financial Condition of U.S. Electric Utility Industry”, March, 1986. 
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• The cessation of commercial fuel reprocessing ventures in the U.S. (West Valley, NY, Morris, IL, 

and Barnwell, SC) as a result of technological, economic and political pressures.

• The reactor accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania, which brought fundamental 

changes to nuclear regulation in the U.S. and prompted the commercial nuclear industry to 

establish a new system of self-monitoring.

• The decision by the Ford and Carter administrations, based primarily on proliferation concerns,

not to provide federal funds for the reprocessing of commercial spent fuel This and other factors 

led to the adoption of a “once-through” fuel cycle and, subsequently, to the cancellation (by 

Congress) of the DOE-funded Clinch River Breeder Reactor project.

These events in the 1970s led ultimately to the cancellation of about 120 reactor orders. The slowdown 

developed into a full-blown hiatus in new nuclear plant orders that stretched from 1979 until a few 

years ago when numerous reactor license applications were submitted to the NRC. Some of these 

license applicants are now entering construction.

9

 This hiatus was the backdrop for new thinking about 

spent fuel management, as the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and its amendments in 1987 both 

recognized that the United States would have to dispose of substantial quantities of commercial nuclear 

reactor spent fuel and defense high-level waste (HLW).

Following the TMI accident, the industry created the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) to set 

uniform standards and to share best practices across the industry. Industry also undertook a number of 

other initiatives to cope with lost public confidence, rapid expansion of nuclear safety regulation, design 

and engineering problems being evidenced in plant operating experience, and poor nuclear plant 

economic performance in relation to competing fossil power generation.

A survey conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in the early 1980s surprisingly found 

that nuclear utility executives were not ready to abandon nuclear energy as an option for the future.10 

However, these executives saw future growth in nuclear energy as contingent on major changes in the 

design, operation, and regulation of new reactors. They would demand safer and simpler designs that 

were easier to operate and maintain. They recognized that building in greater safety margins and 

maintainability features could increase the capital costs of nuclear power, but they appreciated that 

these investments could lead to higher plant availability and lower operating and maintenance costs 

over the life of the plant. These executives also demanded a more stable and predictable licensing 

process for new plants. 

Utility executives also rejected departures from proven fuels and materials. They strongly favored 

continued reliance on LWR technology, but also urged development of passive safety concepts to 

simplify LWR safety systems. Out of this survey grew the utility-led Advanced Light Water Reactor 

 9 In 2007 and 2008 the NRC received a total of 16 combined license applications for 26 new reactors. As of October 2011, only 

four of those sites have begun preliminary site work and are in the final stages of receiving NRC approval of their combined 

operating licenses (COLs):Vogtle units 3 and 4 (AP1000 reactors), and V.C. Summer units 2 and 3 (AP1000 reactors). 10 Jones, et al., “Technical and Institutional Preparedness for Introduction of Evolutionary Water Cooled Reactors.” Presented at 

IAEA Symposium on “Evolutionary Water Cooled Reactors: Strategic Issues, Technologies, and Economic Viability”, Seoul, 

Republic of Korea, 30 Nov. – 4 Dec., 1998.
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(ALWR) Program, which developed a Utility Requirements Document and also funded, with matching

support from DOE, the development of advanced reactor designs that are the basis for the new plants 

currently being licensed by the NRC for the issuance of construction and operating permits.

Economic deregulation of electricity markets in the early 1990s, driven in part by the Energy Policy Act 

of 1992, put additional pressure on commercial nuclear power. Deregulation also created the possibility 

that nuclear plants with poor operating records, that otherwise might have been decommissioned, 

could instead be sold or reinvigorated. The reliability and availability of the first few nuclear plants that 

were sold to more experienced operators during the 1990s improved rapidly, often within 18 months, 

under new management practices. As shown in figure 1, this coincided with a general industry-wide 

trend of improving plant reliability. 

Figure 1. Median Design Electrical Rating (DER) Capacity Factor of the U.S. Reactor Fleet

(1974-2009)11

Improving operating practices and plant reliability have also contributed to a positive trend in workplace 

safety statistics (see figure 2). This is not surprising, as hazards to plant personnel tend to be lower 

during operating periods than during maintenance and refueling outages.

 11 Blake, E. Michael, “Capacity factor remains over 90%”, Nuclear News, May 2010, pgs. 39-43.
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Figure 2. U.S. Nuclear Worker Lost-Time Injury Rate (1997–2010)12

While NRC data show no negative overall trends in reactor safety—on the contrary, most related 

statistics show that the safety of U.S. reactors has improved substantially over the last two decades—

some significant safety problems have also occurred during this period. For example, inadequate inservice inspection and other flawed procedures and safety violations delayed the discovery of extensive 

corrosion of the reactor vessel head in the Davis Besse plant in 2002 (the corrosion in this instance was 

caused by a persistent leak of borated water).

The March 2011 event at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan is the first major nuclear accident to 

be initiated by a severe natural disaster, rather than by a combination of equipment failures and human 

error. While natural disasters of this magnitude are fortunately rare, when they occur their effects on 

civil infrastructure must be examined closely, since it is impossible to study these effects fully in the 

laboratory. Clearly, as a first-of-a-kind and very severe event, the accident at Fukushima is expected to 

provide a large body of information, which in turn may require changes to existing nuclear reactors and 

may impact the design and operation of new reactors as well.

2.2 A Primer on Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology 

This section provides an overview of the main characteristics and features that distinguish different 

types of nuclear reactors and fuel cycles. It is intended for the non-expert reader, as background for 

understanding the technology comparisons that are the subject of section 3. We begin by describing 

four broad fuel cycle strategies or options: the once-through fuel cycle as currently practiced in the 

United States, an alternative once-through fuel cycle, the modified open fuel cycle, and the fully-closed 

fuel cycle. It is important to emphasize that no rigorously specified definition exists for these options—

 12 Number of accidents resulting in lost work, restricted work, or fatalities per 200,000 worker hours. Nuclear Energy Institute 

(http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/safetyandsecurity/graphicsandcharts/usnuclearindustrialsafetyaccide

ntrate/) and World Association of Nuclear Operators.
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indeed there is considerable variation in how technologies or combinations of technologies are 

identified or grouped in the literature and in discussions within the nuclear industry and scientific 

community.

A nuclear power reactor uses the energy released during nuclear fission (splitting the nucleus of atoms) 

to create heat, which is then used to generate electricity or for other applications. Nuclear reactors are 

just one of a series of inter-related components that are collectively referred to as the nuclear fuel cycle 

(see figure 3). When discussing nuclear fuel cycles, a distinction is usually made between the “front 

end” of the cycle and the “back end.” The front end consists of everything from the recovery of primary 

natural resources (uranium or thorium) to the use of these resources in the reactor. The back end of the 

fuel cycle typically consists of the stages that occur after irradiated nuclear fuel has been removed from 

the reactor core; these stages include storage, disposal and reprocessing. 

Figure 3. Generic Nuclear Fuel Cycle13

The Once-Through Fuel Cycle: The nuclear fuel cycle as implemented in the United States is called the 

“once-through” fuel cycle because it uses nuclear fuel only once before the fuel is placed into geologic 

disposal. The once-through fuel cycle begins with the recovery of uranium from naturally occurring 

deposits or as a byproduct of producing other minerals—as shown in figure 4. Natural uranium consists 

mainly of two isotopes:

14 the easily fissioned (or “fissile”) isotope uranium-235 (U-235) and uranium-238 

(U-238). In a sample of natural uranium, U-235 only accounts for 0.7 percent of the total mass, while 

U-238 makes up most of the balance. For use in a standard LWR, the U-235 content must be increased 

(or “enriched”) to 4–5 percent. The enriched uranium is then formed into fuel assemblies to operate 

the LWRs that comprise the entire U.S. commercial reactor fleet.

 13 Adapted from EIA - http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/images/intro_fig1.jpg. 14 Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have a different number of neutrons but the same number of protons. In the 

case of uranium, all isotopes have 92 protons, but U-235 has 143 neutrons while U-238 has 146 neutrons.
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Figure 4. The Once-through Nuclear Fuel Cycle15

A typical LWR in the United States is loaded with approximately 100 metric tons of uranium oxide and will 

need 25 to 33 metric tons of fuel replaced each year. A fuel assembly is a square bundle of long, hollow 

metal rods each of which holds a stack of uranium oxide pellets—a typical fuel assembly, depending on 

the type of reactor for which it is intended, contains between 0.2 and 0.5 metric tons of uranium, is 

about 14 feet long, and weighs between 700 and 1,400 pounds (see figures 5 and 6).

After four to six years inside a reactor, a fuel assembly will no longer generate heat efficiently and must 

be replaced. At this point the fuel is considered used or spent.16 When first removed from the reactor 

core, spent fuel assemblies are highly radioactive and generate substantial amounts of dangerous 

radiation and heat that must be managed. They are transferred under water into a stainless-steel-lined, 

water-filled storage pool within the facility, which shields humans from the radiation and cools the fuel. 

After a period of time in the storage pools,

17 the fuel is typically handled in one of two ways: (1) it can be 

sent for storage and eventual disposal to ensure long-term isolation from the biosphere and to protect 

against potential public health and environmental damage from long-lived radioactive materials, or (2) it 

can be reprocessed to separate and remove still usable constituents (including uranium for reenrichment and plutonium to constitute the fissile material in reactor fuel) , with remaining materials 

processed into waste forms for disposal.

 15 Wigeland, et al., “Identification, Description, and Characterization of Existing and Alternative Nuclear Energy Systems”, 

May 2011. Commissioned paper for the BRC. www.brc.gov. 16 Throughout this document we employ the term “spent” nuclear fuel. “Used fuel” is the term that appears in the

Commission’s charter, but “spent fuel” (sometimes abbreviated “SNF”) is the term used in much of the literature on this topic, 

and in many U.S. regulations and statutes concerning the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The different terminology reflects a 

profound policy debate as to whether the fuel is a waste (hence “spent”) or a resource to be recovered through recycling 

(hence “used”). We use the older terminology, albeit without prejudging the answer to the policy debate. 17 Industry practice in the United States to keep spent nuclear fuel in the spent fuel pools a minimum of 5 years before placing it 

in dry cask storage.
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Figure 5. Example Fuel Assembly18 Figure 6. Workers Handling Fresh Nuclear Fuel 

Assemblies

19

When fresh uranium fuel is placed in a reactor, it typically contains 4–5 percent U-235, with the rest 

consisting of U-238. When the spent fuel is removed, it contains less than 1 percent U-235, 93 percent

U-238, 1 percent plutonium, 0.1 percent minor actinides,20 and 4–5 percent fission products,21 as shown 

in figure 7. 

The reprocessing (sometimes referred to as just “processing”) of spent fuel is complicated by the fuel’s 

high level of radioactivity. Process equipment must be heavily shielded and most operations and 

maintenance must be performed remotely in order to limit personnel exposure. Various reprocessing 

methods have been used to separate individual components of spent fuel, but the most widely adopted 

method to date was developed in the United States and is called the PUREX process (for Plutonium 

URanium EXtraction). With the PUREX process, spent fuel is chopped up, the fuel matrix is dissolved in 

acid, and the fuel is chemically separated into various liquid streams (particularly plutonium and 

uranium). The plutonium and uranium can then be utilized in various fuel cycles options, as discussed 

later in this section. The status of reprocessing facilities worldwide is discussed further in section 2.3.

 18 Adapted from AREVA NP, Inc. graphic from http://www.chemcases.com/nuclear/nc-06.html. 19 Graphic from http://www.nrc.gov/images/reading-rm/photo-gallery/20071114-045.jpg. 20 The term “minor actinides” refers to a group of elements that are heavier than uranium and plutonium. The most relevant 

minor actinides in relation to managing spent nuclear fuel are americium, neptunium, and curium. 21 Fission products in spent fuel are created by the splitting (fissioning) of heavy isotopes such as uranium-235 into smaller 

atoms. Although some fission products can serve a useful purpose, most are designated for disposal.
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Figure 7. Elements of Spent Nuclear Fuel22

For the first two decades of commercial nuclear power development the expectation in the United 

States was that spent nuclear fuel would be reprocessed and that the industry would proceed with the 

short-term use of a modified open fuel cycle (described below) on the way to deploying a fully closed 

fuel cycle (also described below). The assumption that spent fuel would be stored on site in storage 

pools only temporarily drove reactor designers to include only relatively small spent fuel storage pools 

at most reactor sites. By the 1970s, however, the United States abandoned commercial reprocessing—

on the basis of a combination of policy concerns (largely having to do with nuclear weapons 

proliferation) and economics—and the government soon after assigned DOE the responsibility of 

developing a disposal facility for spent fuel.

As DOE fell further and further behind in its efforts to site and open a permanent geologic repository for 

high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel, and as utilities began to run out of space in their water-filled 

storage pools, more of the spent fuel was moved to massive concrete or steel casks, or concreteshielded horizontal storage cavities for dry storage in open-air, above-ground enclosures at the reactor 

site. In the United States today, dry cask storage is considered the preferred option for extended 

periods of interim storage (i.e., multiple decades up to 100 years or possibly more).

The output of spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s commercial nuclear power plants varies with the 

amount of electricity produced by these plants and the amount of energy produced by each unit of 

spent fuel (called burnup). In recent years, the annual figure has ranged from 2,000 to 2,400 metric 

tons. Currently, all but a very small fraction of the still-growing commercial spent fuel inventory—which 

currently stands at approximately 65,000 metric tons nationwide—is being stored at reactor sites. Until 

the United States develops a disposal and/or reprocessing solution, the final disposition pathway and 

timeframe for moving these materials remains uncertain. 

 22 EPRI Spring Journal 2008, http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/CorporateDocuments/EPRI_Journal/2008-

Spring/1016422_NuclearFuelCycle.pdf.
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Alternate Once-Through Fuel Cycles are similar to the existing once-through fuel cycle in that their 

defining characteristic is the absence of any reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. As a result, storage and 

eventual disposal is needed for all spent fuel. However, future approaches to the once-through fuel 

cycle could incorporate advances or improvements over current practice. For example, uranium may be 

enriched to a higher concentration of U-235 to achieve higher burn up.

23 Improved cladding materials 

such as silicon carbide may also enable higher burn up while offering improved safety margins, reduced 

maintenance, and improved waste-form performance. Higher burn up also reduces the volume of waste 

generated for each unit of energy produced although the total radionuclide inventory in the spent fuel is 

 23 The term “burn up” refers to the utilization of the latent fission energy in the fuel. The higher the burn up, the larger the 

fraction of the latent energy that has been released via fission to generate heat energy.

Reactor Types – What Makes them Different?

A reactor can be characterized by the type of fuel, moderator, neutron spectrum, and coolant that it 

employs: 

Nuclear fuel contains heavy atoms that can fission (or split into two unequal halves) when hit with 

neutrons. The splitting of the atom produces energy (in the form of heat), plus excess neutrons that 

go on to create more fission reactions. Natural uranium consists of 99.3% of the isotope U-238 and 

0.7% of the isotope U-235. The term “enrichment” describes that step of the fuel cycle where the 

concentration of U-235 in natural uranium is increased, typically to a level of 4–5% for most 

commercial reactors.

Moderators are substances that act to slow down (or “moderate”) the high-energy neutrons that 

result from fission reactions. Ordinary water (“light” water) is the most common moderator. Its 

primary advantages are that it is abundant and that it is efficient in slowing down neutrons. Its 

primary disadvantage is that it tends to absorb neutrons, preventing them from splitting other atoms 

and thus reducing the rate of fission reactions. “Fissile” isotopes such as U-235 and Pu-239 fission 

much more easily when the neutron striking them has been slowed down or “thermalized” in the 

reactor core. Thermal-spectrum reactors can operate with fuel with low concentrations of fissile 

isotopes, while “fast-spectrum” reactors require higher concentrations. 

Neutron spectrum refers to the distribution of neutron speed (or energy) in the reactor core. In a 

fast reactor most neutrons are moving at speeds close to the speed they possess at the moment of 

fission and so are said to have a “hard” neutron spectrum. In a moderated reactor, by contrast, the 

neutrons have been slowed down (softened) to energies consistent with the temperature of the 

reactor environment (hence the name “thermal” or “thermalized” reactor). Thermalized neutrons 

are moving thousands of times slower than fast neutrons. The vast majority of commercial-scale 

reactors operating in the world today are thermal reactors.

Coolants are fluids that transfer heat from the reactor core to another component (or region) of the 

reactor system where that heat can be used to generate steam to drive a steam turbine (or in the 

case of some gas-cooled reactors, drive a gas turbine directly). The most common liquid coolants are 

water, liquid metals such as sodium, lead, and bismuth, and fluoride salts; the most common gas 

coolant in future reactor designs is helium. 
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about the same.24 In other words, fuels with higher burn up stay in the reactor longer and therefore do 

not need to be replaced as often. This means that less spent fuel is generated over the same period of 

time compared to fuels with lower burn up. There are limits to how much burn up can be increased 

however, and to the benefits that can be achieved through this approach.25 Systems that result in 

nearly complete consumption of natural uranium in a once-through cycle, while theoretically possible, 

are not considered realistic. 

Other variations on the current once-through cycle could involve the use of thorium fuels. However, 

nonproliferation metrics for once-through thorium fuel cycles are essentially the same as for uranium 

fuels. The higher level of uranium enrichment needed to drive these cycles might offset savings in 

enrichment capacity and natural uranium consumption. A repository would still be required for the 

spent fuel, which would still contain significant concentrations of long-lived alpha emitters.

Finally, different reactor and irradiation technologies could potentially be used in the context of future 

versions of the once-through fuel cycle, including the option for both fast reactors and externally driven 

sub-critical facilities. Both systems offer the potential for very efficient use of natural uranium. 

Modified Open Fuel Cycle: We have defined this category to encompass a very wide range of possible 

fuel cycles with multiple possible combinations of different reactor, separations, and fuel fabrication 

technologies.26 Our definition includes any fuel cycle in which some of the spent fuel is processed rather 

than being directly disposed of after a single pass through a reactor (see figure 8). Spent fuel could be 

processed just to improve the characteristics of the resulting waste streams for disposal, but because 

LWR spent fuel is believed to be sufficiently robust to provide an acceptable waste form, it is unlikely 

(particularly from a cost perspective) that it would be reprocessed purely for the purpose of separating 

its constituents and processing them into specialized waste forms.

Another approach to processing spent fuel is to use methods that do not involve separating actinide-rich 

materials so that some of the resulting products can be reconstituted into new fuel for a different type 

of reactor, after which the residues would be sent for disposal. As an example, volatile and gaseous 

fission products may be removed during high-temperature processing so there is no overall separation 

of non-volatile fission products, transuranics, and uranium.27 The purpose of this approach is to 

increase the utilization of uranium fuel and reduce total waste generation.

 24 Higher burn up will produce little change in the amount of natural uranium needed to fuel the overall system, since higher 

burn up fuel needs to be enriched to a proportionately higher level and therefore requires more natural uranium. 25The ability of the fuel matrix and the fuel cladding to withstand higher burn up will ultimately limit how much burn up can be 

increased. According to DOE’s FY2006 Alternative Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) Comparison Report, doubling the burn up in the 

once-through fuel cycle could yield a 38% reduction in long-term radiotoxicity and a 13% reduction in estimated peak 

repository dose because proportionately fewer actinides are produced per unit of burn up. 26 The subcommittee notes (and laments) that there is no consistent or generally accepted definition of what constitutes a 

modified open cycle. 27 A specific example of this is the DUPIC fuel cycle, where used light water reactor fuel is reconstituted for further irradiation in 

a heavy water reactor without separating the actinides from each other or from non-volatile fission products.
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Operating Commercial-Scale Reactor Types

Light Water Reactors (LWRs): In LWRs, the coolant and the moderator are one and the same: ordinary (“light”) 

water. To fuel these reactors, uranium is enriched to 4–5% U-235 and most of the fissions that occur in the 

reactor core are caused by low-energy (“thermal”) neutrons. Heat from fission is transferred by the cooling 

water to a steam generator, where steam is generated to drive a turbine. This type of reactor is called a 

pressurized water reactor (PWR). In a boiling water reactor (BWR), steam is created by allowing the cooling 

water to boil directly in the reactor core region, thus eliminating the need for steam generators. The current 

U.S. fleet of operating commercial reactors includes 69 PWRs and 35 BWRs. A less common type of LWR, the 

light water graphite reactor, uses enriched uranium fuel in vertical light-water-cooled pressure tubes, 

surrounded by graphite blocks as the moderator. A Russian version of this design, called the RBMK, was the 

design used at Chernobyl and is no longer used outside of Russia.

High Temperature Reactors: Most high-temperature reactors (HTRs) use gases, such as carbon dioxide, for 

their coolant and typically use graphite as their moderator. Gas-cooled reactors allow for direct drive or 

indirect drive of a gas turbine for power conversion, thus avoiding the steam cycle typical of other nuclear 

(and many fossil-fueled) thermoelectric plants. As a result, they achieve higher plant efficiencies. Gas-cooled 

reactors are still deployed extensively in the UK (18 of that country’s 19 operating reactors are gas-cooled and 

use carbon dioxide as a coolant). Most developers of gas-cooled reactors have shifted to higher-temperature 

designs, which generate much higher outlet temperatures and thus can be used to supply process heat for 

chemical processes, such as those needed to generate hydrogen and/or hydrocarbons. Researchers are also 

exploring HTR designs that use fluoride salts as low-pressure coolants. Although graphite moderated reactors

can and did operate on natural uranium, future HTRs are being designed to operate on enriched uranium 

(often enriched to higher levels than conventional LWR fuel), while salts may also be used for fluid fuels that 

would support thorium-based fuel cycles.

Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs): PHWRs typically operate on natural or slightly enriched uranium 

and use heavy water (D2O) as the moderator and, in most cases, also the coolant. Deployed primarily in Canada 

and India, PWHRs are also utilized in South Korea, Romania, and China. The most utilized version of the PHWR 

is the CANDU reactor (Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s CANADA Deuterium Uranium reactor). As in the PWR, 

the primary coolant generates steam in a secondary circuit to drive the turbines and generate electricity. By 

allowing individual pressure tubes to be isolated from the cooling circuit, PWHRs can be refueled without 

shutting down.

Breeders and Burners: A “breeder” reactor is one in which the conversion ratio (the amount of fissile material it 

produces compared to the amount of fissile material it uses) is greater than one. This means the reactor 

“breeds” or creates more fissile material than it is using for fission. A “burner” reactor is one in which the 

conversion ratio is less than one, meaning that the reactor is “burning” or utilizing more fissile material than it 

is producing. Breeder reactors, operating in tandem with spent fuel reprocessing, allow for “closed” fuel cycles, 

in which most fuel constituents can be recycled. 

Liquid Metal Reactors (LMRs): LMRs typically use sodium (or other liquid metals) as the coolant and operate on 

mixed uranium and plutonium fuels that efficiently fission in a “fast” neutron spectrum. The design of the fuel 

and the shape of the reactor core can be adjusted to allow for breeding or burning, or for the self-sustaining

production of fissile material (i.e., Pu-239) as the reactor operates. All U.S., British, and French LMRs are shut

down and largely decommissioned. Japan completed construction of the Monju fast reactor in 1994, but it 

experienced a sodium leak in 1995 and was shut down. After returning to operation in May 2010, the Monju 

reactor was shut down again after experiencing an accident during a refueling operation. The Monju reactor is 

presently not expected to resume operation until at least 2014. Russia has had better success with fast 

reactors, with its BN-350 and BN-600 reactors starting up in 1972 and 1980, respectively. The BN-350 no longer 

operates. The BN-600 is still operating, and the BN-800 is under construction. China and India also have 

significant LMR programs, both with operating LMR prototypes and new plants under construction.
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Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Figure 8. Modified Open Nuclear Fuel Cycle28

The more likely scenario, if a modified open cycle were to be adopted in the United States, would 

involve the reprocessing and limited recycling of some constituents of spent LWR fuel. In this scenario, 

one or more elements from the spent fuel are separated and recovered to be used again,29 but this is 

only done once or, at most, a few times before the spent fuel is sent for disposal. This approach would 

leave some spent fuel, the high-level waste from spent fuel reprocessing, and transuranic-contaminated 

materials such as cladding hulls in need of geologic disposal. The preparation and fabrication of the 

recycle fuel will also differ significantly from the fabrication of typical uranium fuel because it will have 

to be performed in a sealed environment (either with glove boxes or, if sufficiently radioactive, in 

shielded hot cells). 

From a waste management standpoint, the benefits of the modified open cycle compared to the oncethrough cycle depend on the composition and the physical and chemical characteristics of the spent fuel 

and high-level waste that result from this approach. Recycle activities also produce large quantities of 

low-level and transuranic-contaminated wastes that are not produced in the once-through option, but

that also require disposal. 

As already noted, the modified open cycle in general could have many variations, especially where more 

than one reactor type is included in the fuel cycle. Both thermal and fast reactors can be used, as well 

as accelerator-driven systems.

30 Adding still more options, numerous separations technologies are 

possible, depending on the elements to be recovered for reuse. 

 28 Idaho National Laboratory, BRC Commissioned White Paper, Identification, Description, and Characterization of Existing and 

Alternative Nuclear Energy Systems, May 2011. 29 Typically, for example, plutonium would be extracted for re-use in mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. 30 Accelerator-driven systems are systems that generate a source of neutrons without fission, such as accelerators or 

cyclotrons.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 15 January 2012

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Including different fuel types, the possibility of using thorium, and different disposal paths results in a

long list of specific fuel cycle combinations. However, modified open cycle options all share four basic 

characteristics: 

• The need for uranium fuel (natural or enriched, depending on the reactor);

• Reprocessing of spent fuel once or, at most, a few times;

• Incorporation of some reprocessing products into new fuel; and

• Need for disposal of high-level, low-level, and transuranic (TRU) wastes from reprocessing, as 

well as spent fuel.

Fully-Closed Fuel Cycle with (Sustained) Recycle: The defining feature of full recycle strategies is that 

spent fuel is reprocessed such that only high-level wastes from the separations process and transuraniccontaminated wastes (such as cladding hulls) require geologic disposal (see figure 9). The primary aim is 

to recycle elements that can be used for fission. Additionally, while interim storage of SNF can provide 

some benefits in reducing the decay heat generated by fission products (in spent fuel, fission products 

account for approximately one-quarter of the total heat deposited into the geologic media of the

repository; actinides account for the remaining 75 percent), actinide reuse and transmutation31 provide 

the only practical approach to reduce the longer-term decay heat generated by transuranic elements.

Figure 9. Fully-Closed Nuclear Fuel Cycle with (Sustained) Recycle32

 

31 In this context, transmutation means transforming an undesirable radionuclide into a less undesirable radionuclide. 

Transmutation occurs in a reactor as a result of the heavy flux of neutrons generated by the fission process. It is not possible to 

accelerate the decay of a radionuclide without transmuting it to another radionuclide that has a shorter half-life. 32 Idaho National Laboratory (2011)
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The extent to which long-term repository doses can be reduced by transmuting very long-lived elements 

depends on the specific repository environment. Some of these elements, including many of the 

transuranic elements, may have low mobility following deep geologic disposal. However, for those 

elements that may be mobile, recycle can enable transmutation, or the incorporation of these elements 

into waste forms with greater chemical stability than is provided by spent fuel. Because no chemical 

separation processes can ever be perfect, the high-level wastes generated as part of a full recycle 

strategy, as well as fuel cladding and reprocessing equipment that contacts transuranic-bearing 

materials, will contain small amounts of transuranics and thus will also require deep geologic disposal.

Full recycle strategies can be further subdivided into “burner” vs. “breeder” fuel cycles. Burner full 

recycle options “burn up” the long-lived actinides; most burner concepts employ fast reactors and either 

uranium or uranium and thorium fuels. For burner cycles, “fissile” material (that is, material that 

fissions easily such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239) needs to be added with every recycle. In these 

cycles it is generally assumed that the fissile material will come from recycled LWR spent fuel (i.e., from 

reactors operating on a once-through fuel cycle or from an existing inventory of spent fuel). 

Recycled transuranic isotopes are typically used in a burner reactor. They are placed in the reactor as 

separate fuel elements (i.e., the fresh fuel is kept separate from the recycled fuel elements) to avoid 

having to fabricate all of the fuel using more costly glove boxes or hot cells. However, there are also 

examples where fuel fabrication may not be needed at all, such as in certain reactor designs where the 

nuclear material is dissolved in the coolant.

A breeder fuel cycle with thermal reactors operating with uranium/thorium fuel was demonstrated at 

Shippingport, Pennsylvania in a specially designed LWR in the 1970s. Breeder cycles are also possible 

using molten salt reactors with thorium-bearing fluid fuel. However the more conventional use of solid 

fuel has made sodium-cooled fast reactors the primary choice to date among nations that have pursued 

the breeder fuel cycle. Once started, the “breeder” fuel cycle would displace the need for enriched 

uranium fuel even for starting new reactors; it would also continue to satisfy the waste management 

goal of greatly reducing transuranics in the waste streams. On the other hand, in the fast-spectrum 

uranium fuel cycle the quantity and mass flows of transuranics actively circulating through different fuel 

cycle facilities during recycle is greater compared to a once-through fuel cycle. Breeder cycles that 

involve thorium generally have much smaller transuranic inventories.

Managing the nuclear fuel cycle entails considerations spelled out in the Commission’s charter, including 

safety, cost, resource utilization and sustainability, and the promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and 

counter-terrorism goals. In considering the potential future use of nuclear power and the development 

and deployment of advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies in particular, it is important to evaluate 

every component of the interconnected fuel cycle as a system, and to consider all of these issues and 

any associated impacts. Thus, while the BRC is focused on approaches to managing the back end of the 

fuel cycle in the United States, we recognize that any strategy must, of necessity, consider all aspects of 

the fuel cycle as an integrated whole. 
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Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

2.3 Status of Nuclear Reactors and Nuclear Fuel Cycle Developments in the 

United States and Abroad

All of the nuclear technology assessments considered by this Subcommittee take the once-through fuel 

cycle—as currently practiced in the United States using LWR technology—as the baseline or reference 

nuclear energy system for comparison to alternative systems. Light-water-cooled, thermal-neutron 

spectrum reactors generate all of the nuclear power produced in the U.S. and are the technology used in

more than 80 percent of nuclear plants operating around the world today (see table 1). Improved 

versions of this technology also account for nearly all new reactors that are currently under construction 

or that utilities plan to build in the future. Today, 433 nuclear reactors worldwide supply approximately

14 percent of global electricity demand and 5.7 percent of total primary energy demand.

33,34

Table 1. Operating Nuclear Power Units by Reactor Type, Worldwide35

Reactor Type # Units Generating Capacity MWe

Pressurized light-water reactors 267 246,708

Boiling light-water reactors 84 78,200

Graphite-moderated light-water reactors 15 10,219

Heavy-water reactors, all types 49 24,658

Gas-cooled reactors, all types 17 8,732

Liquid-metal-cooled fast-breeder reactors 1 560

Totals 433 369,077

The United States currently has 104 operating LWRs, of which 69 are pressurized water reactors and 

35 are boiling water reactors (BWRs). These reactors are located at 65 different sites in 31 states across 

the country (see figure 10). In 2010, these reactors provided nearly one-fifth (19.6 percent) of U.S. 

electrical generation, or approximately 807 billion kilowatt-hours. 

 

33 IAEA, International Status and Prospects of Nuclear Power, 2010. Available at:

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/NuclearPower/np10.pdf. 34 World Nuclear Association - http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html, update for Dec 1, 2011. 35 Nuclear News – 13th Annual Reference Issue, American Nuclear Society, March 2011 – BRC updated this data to reflect 

“The World Nuclear Association” Dec 1, 2011 update to their international reactor database.
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Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Figure 10. Location of U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Reactors and Their Years of Operation36

There are currently 62 reactors under construction around the world and significant expansion of 

nuclear power is planned in some countries in the years ahead, particularly in China, Russia, India, and 

South Korea.

37 Table 2 shows reactor data for 2010, including the regions where reactor construction is 

underway. Prior to the events at Fukushima, Japan had been planning the addition of over a dozen new

nuclear power plants. However, the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has caused

the Japanese government to reconsider its long-term energy policy and in particular the assumption that 

nuclear power would continue to play a larger role in the country’s energy mix. Japan’s Prime Minister 

Yoshihiko Noda has been quoted in media reports as saying that although the reactors shut down as a 

result of the Fukushima accident should be restarted to meet current power demand, Japan “must move 

towards our mid- and long-term goals of lowering, as much as possible, our reliance on nuclear 

energy."38

 36 Source: NRC, http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/power-reactors-map-sm.jpg. 37 World Nuclear Association, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html, update for April 13, 2011. 38 BBC News, New Japan PM Noda, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14895182.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 19 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Table 2. Nuclear Power Reactor Statistics Worldwide39

Region

Reactors in Operation 

(2011)

Reactors under 

Construction (2011)

Nuclear Power 

(2008)

Number

Net 

Capacity 

(MWe) Number

Net 

Capacity 

(MWe)

Use 

(EJ)

% of Country’s 

Electricity 

Generation

North America 121 113,477 4 3,408 9.76 19.04

Latin America 6 4,436 2 2,150 0.32 2.38

Western Europe 120 115,146 2 3,420 8.97 26.68

Central and Eastern Europe 67 47,958 12 9,840 3.64 18.30

Africa 2 1,800 0 0 0.14 2.11

Middle East and South Asia 24 6,025 7 4,940 0.16 0.99

Far East 93 80,235 35 38,896 5.35 10.15

World 433 369,077 62 62,654 28.34 14.03

Countries with existing nuclear power plants are not the only countries considering nuclear power. 

A 2010 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found that some 65 countries without 

nuclear power plants “are expressing interest in, considering, or actively planning for nuclear power” 

after a “gap of nearly 15 years” when there was little interest in expanding nuclear power worldwide.40

Of these 65 un-named countries, 21 are in the Asia/Pacific region, 21 are in Africa, 12 are in Europe 

(mostly eastern Europe), and 11 are in Latin America. However, of the 65 interested countries, 31 are 

not currently planning to build reactors and of those 31, 17 have grid capacity less than 5 GW, which is 

“too small to accommodate most of the reactor designs on offer.” The report added that nuclear 

technology options may also be limited for countries with grid capacities between 5 GW and 10 GW.

Additionally, the IAEA report states that of the countries planning reactors, fourteen of them “indicate a 

strong intention to proceed,” seven are preparing but haven’t made a final decision, ten have made a 

decision and are preparing infrastructure, two have ordered a new nuclear power plant, and one has a 

plant under construction. The U.S. State Department notes that 12 of these countries have taken 

 

39 Adapted from Tables B-1 and B-2 from IAEA – International Status and Prospects of Nuclear Power 2010 (updated to include 

Dec 2011 World Nuclear Association data), http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/NuclearPower/np10.pdf

(Note - the IAEA data places Mexico in the Latin America group instead of North America). 40 IAEA (2010) available at: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/NuclearPower/np10.pdf.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 20 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

concrete steps toward starting a nuclear energy program.41 Several of these “new-entrants” have 

already committed to building new reactors based on the ALWR technology now being used in new 

plants nearing construction in the United States, China, and elsewhere. Although countries such as 

Russia, Canada, and South Korea are successfully marketing their own reactor technologies 

internationally, it is likely that five major reactor designs certified or under review by the U.S. NRC will 

play a major role in the deployment of standardized commercial reactor technology in the 21st century: 

the AP1000, the ESBWR, the ABWR, the U.S. EPR (based on the French vendor AREVA design), and the 

U.S. APWR (based on the Japanese vendor Mitsubishi design). The AP1000 is currently under 

construction in China and in early site preparation in the United States. Other designs may be submitted 

in the future to the U.S. NRC for design certification review (a potential example is the standard South 

Korean APR-1400 design).

In the United States today, LWR technology is deployed as part of a once-through fuel cycle in which 

recovered natural uranium is enriched, used once as a reactor fuel, and then stored pending ultimate 

disposition (see figure 3). Special facilities are needed for each step of the fuel cycle: at present, the 

NRC directly regulates 14 uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities across the country, in 

addition to several uranium recovery facilities in New Mexico, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Table 3 lists 

each of these facilities.

Although the United States currently relies on the once-through fuel cycle for commercial electrical 

generation, it plans on adopting the use of mixed oxide or “MOX” fuel as a result of the 2000 Plutonium 

Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), which commits both the United States and Russia to 

disposing of no less than 34 metric tons (MT) of excess weapon-grade plutonium each. The combined 

amount of plutonium to be disposed of, 68 metric tons, represents enough material for approximately 

17,000 nuclear weapons.42 To make MOX fuel for use in existing nuclear power plants, surplus weapongrade plutonium will be blended with depleted uranium oxide. Although the United States had 

established some limited MOX fuel fabrication capability in the 1970s,43 new capability has had to be 

developed to comply with the terms of the PMDA. In 1999, DOE signed a contract with Duke COGEMA 

Stone & Webster (DCS), now Shaw AREVA MOX Services, to design, build, and operate a MOX fuel 

fabrication facility on the DOE’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina. Construction is still in 

progress, with the facility scheduled to open in 2016. Once operational, it will take approximately 

15 years for this facility to process the 34 MT of plutonium required to be disposed of under the PMDA. 

 

41 U.S. Department of State, United States Information Pertaining to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 

2010, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/141928.pdf. 42 NNSA MOX factsheet - http://nnsa.energy.gov/mediaroom/factsheets/mox. 43 Kerr-McGee’s Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Plant made MOX fuel pins for the DOE’s Fast Flux Test Reactor.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 21 January 2012

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Table 3. Fuel Cycle Facilities Directly Regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission44

Licensee/Facility Location Type

AREVA Enrichment Services (under review) Idaho Falls, ID Gas Centrifuge 

Uranium Enrichment

AREVA NP, Inc. Lynchburg, VA Uranium Fuel Fabrication

AREVA NP, Inc. Richland, WA Uranium Fuel Fabrication

B&W Nuclear Operations Group Lynchburg, VA Uranium Fuel Fabrication

GE-Hitachi (under review) Wilmington, NC Laser Separation 

Uranium Enrichment

Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas, LLC Wilmington, NC Uranium Fuel Fabrication

Honeywell International, Inc. Metropolis, IL Uranium Hexafluoride 

Production (Conversion)

Louisiana Energy Services (in construction) Eunice, NM Gas Centrifuge 

Uranium Enrichment

Nuclear Fuel Services (active facility with 

license renewal application submitted and 

undergoing partial decommissioning)

Erwin, TN Uranium Fuel Fabrication

Shaw AREVA MOX Services , LLC

(in construction/under licensing review) Aiken, SC Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication

U.S. Enrichment Corporation Paducah, KY Gaseous Diffusion 

Uranium Enrichment

U.S. Enrichment Corporation (cold standby) Piketon, OH Gaseous Diffusion 

Uranium Enrichment

U.S. Enrichment Corporation (in construction) Piketon, OH Gas Centrifuge 

Uranium Enrichment

Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC 

(Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility) Columbia, SC Uranium Fuel Fabrication

Crow Butte Resources, Inc. Chadron, 

Nebraska

Uranium Recovery Facility – In 

Situ Recovery (ISR)

Hydro Resources, Inc. Crown Point, New Mexico Uranium Recovery Facility – In 

Situ Recovery (ISR)

Uranium One Americas, Inc. Campbell County, Wyoming Uranium Recovery Facility – In 

Situ Recovery (ISR)

Power Resources, Inc. Douglas, Wyoming 

(Converse County)

Uranium Recovery Facility – In 

Situ Recovery (ISR)

Kennecott Uranium Co. Sweetwater County, 

Wyoming

Uranium Recovery Facility –

conventional uranium mill

Uranium One U.S.A. Johnson & Campbell 

Counties, Wyoming

Uranium Recovery Facility – In 

Situ Recovery (ISR)

 

44 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; see http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/materials/uranium/ and http://www.nrc.gov/infofinder/materials/fuel-cycle/.
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Other countries, notably France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Russia, are implementing alternatives 

to the once-through fuel cycle and are using reprocessing as part of their fuel cycle strategy (see Table 

4).

45 To date, however, no nation has ever achieved a fully closed commercial nuclear fuel cycle, 

including spent fuel reprocessing, breeder reactors, and associated fuel fabrication, waste stream 

management, and other systems. The closest any country has come to closing the fuel cycle is France, 

which operates a large reprocessing plant at La Hague. That plant uses PUREX technology to separate 

plutonium (Pu) from spent fuel; the plutonium is then mixed with depleted uranium and fabricated into 

MOX at another facility in Marcoule, France. MOX assemblies are used once in LWRs and then placed in 

wet storage, with options at that point for either (a) further reprocessing and potential use in fast 

reactors, should that technology be developed commercially, or (b) disposition in a future geologic 

repository. The reprocessing facility at La Hague has historically handled about 75 percent of world 

demand for spent LWR fuel reprocessing services.46 The UK and France have also reprocessed 

significant amounts of gas-cooled reactor fuel, while Russia and France have reprocessed a much smaller 

amount of fast reactor fuel.

With the exception of the French facility at La Hague, which has operated at greater than 60 percent

capacity when sufficient commercial demand existed, other reprocessing facilities worldwide have

typically operated at approximately 25 percent of capacity or less, mostly because of technical and 

environmental restrictions.47 Although the majority of the facilities listed here had a role in supporting 

military missions many years ago, virtually all of today’s reprocessing capacity is dedicated to civilian 

applications.

 

45 IAEA, Spent Fuel Reprocessing Options, IAEA TECDOC-1587, Aug. 2008 - http://wwwpub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1587_web.pdf. 46 Abridged History of Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technologies Development: A White Paper for the Reactor and Fuel Cycle 

Technology Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission, Gary Vine, Longenecker & Associates, March 15, 2011. 47 Vine (2011).
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 23 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Table 4. International Current and Planned Industrial Reprocessing Capacity48

Country Site Plant Fuel Type

Operation Capacity (MTHM)

Start

Shutdown Present Future

China Jiuquan RPP LWR ? 25

Lanzhou LWR 2020 800

France La Hague UP2 LWR 1967 1,000 1,000

La Hague UP3 LWR 1990 1,000 1,000

India 

Trombay PP Research 1964 60 60

Tarapur PREFRE 1 PHWR 1974 100 100

Kalpakkam PREFRE 2 PHWR 1998 100 100

Kalpakkam PREFRE 3A PHWR ? 150

Tarapur PREFRE 3B PHWR 2012 150

Japan Tokai-mura JAEA TRP LWR 1977 210 210

Rokkasho-mura JNFL RRP LWR ? 800 800

Russian 

Federation

Chelyabinsk RT1

VVER-440

BN-350

BN-600 RR

1977 400 400

Krasnoyarsk

RT2 VVER-1000 2025 1,500

Demonstration 

facilities VVER-1000 RBMK 2013 100

UK

Sellafield B205 GCR 1967 2016 1,500

Sellafield Thorp LWR/AGR 1994 2016 900

Total Capacity 5,950 5,475

2.4 Key Findings

(1) LWRs dominate the world market for nuclear generation and remain the primary choice today 

for utilities planning to add new nuclear generation.

(2) Today the United States, Canada and several other nations employ a once-through fuel cycle,

while nations such as France, Japan, and Russia employ a modified open fuel cycle. Although

these latter nations have stated that they adopted a modified open cycle as a step toward fully 

closing the nuclear fuel cycle, no nation so far has actually achieved a fully closed commercial 

nuclear fuel cycle.

 48 IAEA TECDOC-1587, Aug. 2008.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 24 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

3. EVALUTION OF FUEL CYCLE ALTERNATIVES

3.1 Context of the Analysis

Numerous studies have been undertaken in the last decade to assess and compare various reactor and 

fuel cycle options.

49 Collectively these studies have analyzed numerous combinations of strategies and 

technologies. Because the underlying parameters and assumptions are not consistent, however, their

quantitative results are not comparable. Additionally, the state of knowledge about candidate 

technologies is uneven because many of them require considerable development before a defensible 

comparison could be made. As a consequence, it is not possible at this time to distill quantitative 

comparisons across alternative nuclear energy systems and then draw definitive conclusions based on 

those comparisons.

Recognizing that the BRC is charged with developing policy-level findings and recommendations and was 

not constituted to undertake detailed technical research or analysis, we opted to compare alternative 

nuclear energy systems in qualitative terms and with reference to broad strategic goals. Specifically, the 

Subcommittee considered a range of alternative nuclear energy systems over a long time horizon and 

identified three representative alternatives to the once-through LWR. One of these systems is already in 

use; the other two are substantively different from the once-through cycle and have been extensively

studied. In this section, we discuss the major qualitative differences between these alternatives and the 

existing once-through LWR fuel cycle, based on the literature available to the Subcommittee. 

Relative to the once through fuel-cycle, different nuclear energy systems and strategies involve a wide 

range of trade-offs in terms of safety, cost, resource utilization and sustainability, waste management, 

and the promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and counter-terrorism goals. These trade-offs 

complicate any effort to compare the relative merits of different nuclear energy systems, particularly 

 

49 For example, see Bunn 2003; Dixon 2008; DOE 2003, 2004, 2006; EPRI 2009, 2010; MIT 2003, 2009, 2011; Shropshire 2009; 

Wigeland 2009; Wilson 2011; and NWTRB 2011.

Bunn, et al., The Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel (Cambridge, Mass.: Project on Managing 

the Atom, Harvard University, 2003). http://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/files.php/faculty/fetter/2003-Bunn-repro.pdf.

Dixon, et al. Dynamic Systems Analysis Report for Nuclear Fuel Recycle, December 2008, INL/EXT-08-15201 Rev., 

http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/4310613.pdf.

U.S. DOE, Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative Comparison Report, FY 2003 (Updated 2004, 2006),

http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/AFCICompRpt2003.pdf.

EPRI, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Cost Comparison Between Once-Through and Plutonium Single-Recycling in Pressurized Water Reactors, 

1018585, 2009, http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?.

EPRI, Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles –Main Challenges and Strategic Choices, 1020307, 2010, 

http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt.

MIT, The Future of Nuclear Power, 2003 (Updated 2009), http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/.

MIT, The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, 2011, http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/studies/nuclear-fuel-cycle.shtml.

Shropshire, Advanced Fuel Cycle Economic Tools, Algorithms, and Methodologies, 2009, INL/EXT-09-15483, 

http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/4247163.pdf.

Wigeland, AFCI Options Study, 2009, INL/EXT-10-17639, http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/4480296.pdf. 

Wilson, Comparing Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options: Observations and Challenges, 2011,

http://brc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/wilson.fuel_.cycle_.comparisons_final.pdf.

U.S. NWTRB, Nuclear Waste Assessment System for Technical Evaluation (NUWASTE): Status and Initial Results, 2011, 

http://www.nwtrb.gov/reports/nuwaste.pdf.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 25 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

given uncertainty about technological developments and social conditions going forward. The 

conclusions reached by different technology assessments and comparative analyses are heavily 

influenced by input assumptions and by the relative weight given to different policy objectives 

(e.g., reducing waste vs. minimizing proliferation risk vs. maximizing resource utilization)—making it 

difficult to compare results across studies. 

3.2 Criteria for Comparing Nuclear Energy Systems

Evaluating various nuclear fuel cycle technology options and nuclear energy system configurations 

against national policy goals requires the development and application of evaluation criteria. The 

criteria set forth in the BRC charter include safety, cost, resource utilization and sustainability, and the 

promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and counter-terrorism goals. 

Safety – Recent events in Japan have reinforced the importance of a focus on nuclear safety. Although 

the impact of the radiological releases in Japan has been very small in the United States, the events 

there will and should affect public attitudes toward nuclear technology. Even if in the end the health 

consequences of the Fukushima accident prove to be substantially smaller than the direct loss of life 

from the earthquake and tsunami, the disruption caused by evacuating and relocating surrounding 

communities was significant and the economic costs of the accident will surely be very high. Thus, the 

potential adverse impacts of a nuclear disaster remain an abiding public concern. This concern must be 

directly and forthrightly addressed. 

Compared to existing nuclear infrastructure, it is reasonable for society to expect that new nuclear 

infrastructure should be safer, from the perspectives of probabilistic risk assessment, defense in depth, 

and various quantitative measures that relate to safety, such as forced outage rates and worker losttime injuries. For example, new Generation III+ reactor designs typically provide a greater degree of 

physical separation between redundant active safety equipment, or replace active safety systems with 

passive systems, when compared to existing plants. When considering the complete nuclear fuel cycle, 

risks related to the mining and milling of uranium and the transportation of radioactive materials may 

also contribute to a difference in overall safety. A variety of metrics can be used to quantify safety, 

including accident frequency (where accidents include low probability/high consequence initiating 

events like that at Fukushima), core damage frequency (the probability that an initiating event could 

lead to overheating and physical damage to the reactor core), occupational radiation dose (for workers 

at a facility), public radiation dose ), etc. 

Occupational safety and health (OSH) considerations must also be a part of any analysis of nuclear 

energy system safety. Overall, a commissioned paper prepared for the BRC50 concluded that “the 

nuclear industry’s level of OSH performance is significantly stronger than that of other U.S. energy 

sectors” and that OSH risks “at the back-end [of the nuclear fuel cycle] should be manageable in diligent 

operations.” The report also identifies certain areas for continued improvement that provide 

 

50 From Three Mile Island to the Future - Improving Worker Safety and Health In the U.S. Nuclear Power Industry: A White Paper 

Prepared for the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, Stoneturn Consultants, First Revision, March 30, 2011.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 26 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

opportunities for industry and regulators to take new actions to ensure that the nuclear workforce 

operates as safely as possible. An example would be reducing the radiation doses received during plant 

outage work.

Cost is often among the primary criteria used to evaluate nuclear systems and fuel cycles. Costs can be 

estimated for specific aspects of the fuel cycle or on a lifecycle basis for the system as a whole. Often 

costs are expressed in terms of the productive output of the system—for example, as the total levelized 

cost of electricity generated on a per-kilowatt-hour or per megawatt-hour basis. 

Because existing reprocessing facilities have not been deployed in an open market setting, there is 

significant uncertainty in most cost projections for modified open and closed fuel cycles. Additional 

uncertainties are present in forecasts of uranium prices and resource estimates, which have fluctuated 

markedly over the years. Another relevant metric is capital cost or capital at risk—that is, how large an 

initial investment is needed to build a facility or (in the case of capital at risk) how much capital must be 

sunk before the investment begins to generate a return. The metrics of capital cost and capital at risk 

are particularly important for reactor designs because plant construction costs, rather than fuel costs or 

other factors, account for well over half of the cost of producing electricity using nuclear energy. Return 

on investment also depends on how electricity prices are set and on the structure used to assess waste 

disposal fees. For example, under the existing Nuclear Waste Policy Act fee structure, the fee levied on

nuclear-generated electricity is intended to cover a bundle of services including spent fuel 

transportation, consolidated interim storage, and disposal. Absent a mechanism to rebate cost savings, 

the bundling of these services removes economic incentives to implement technologies that could 

reduce transportation, storage, and disposal costs. 

While conventional cost metrics are useful to a commercial enterprise in deciding whether a particular 

nuclear energy system or technology can be competitive, the Commission heard testimony that such 

measures are incomplete because they do not fully account for societal benefits (i.e., job creation) and 

societal concerns (i.e., the concern that the potential stigma of hosting a nuclear facility could have 

adverse socioeconomic impacts on surrounding communities). Many of these same concerns and issues 

arise in the context of SNF management and disposal, including with respect to SNF transport and to the 

development of interim storage facilities and permanent repositories. Thus, decision makers should 

consider societal benefits and concerns in addition to conventional cost metrics when assessing 

different fuel cycle options and when planning for and developing related facilities and operations to 

ensure that all relevant impacts, concerns, and benefits are properly taken into account.

Sustainability is a very broad term and can be understood to include a wide array of environmental 

impacts related to the nuclear fuel cycle and related facilities. Resource utilization is an element of 

sustainability that, in the context of a nuclear fuel cycle, is generally measured in terms of consumption 

of uranium (or thorium) ore, since these are the natural resources at the center of fission energy 

systems. More broadly, efforts to compare the sustainability of different energy technologies must 

consider all resources used during the life cycle of a facility (e.g., steel, concrete, and copper), as well as 

pollution emissions and other environmental externalities, including upstream impacts from the 
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 27 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

production and preparation of nuclear fuel. At various times, the long-term availability of uranium has 

been seen as a potential constraint on the continued use of nuclear energy, although more recent 

estimates of global uranium supply suggest that resources are more than adequate to support current 

and planned nuclear energy systems for at least the next several decades.

51 Because nuclear plant 

construction uses relatively small amounts of steel, concrete, copper, and other natural resources per 

megawatt-hour of generating capacity added,

52 the only other significant natural resource issue that has 

been raised in connection with nuclear energy systems centers on the use of fresh water, which is used 

in large quantities as a coolant in various reactor designs. For LWRs, water withdrawal and thermal 

pollution of aquatic ecosystems in the vicinity of power plants may be a concern in some locations, 

especially where water resources are constrained. Advanced reactor technologies, such as high 

temperature reactors, may have substantially lower or even zero water consumption, or possibly even 

increase water resources in some locations by providing energy for desalination.

Another aspect of sustainability is energy security. In the context of nuclear energy, this concerns the 

extent to which increased reliance on domestic nuclear energy systems could decrease our dependence 

on fuels or energy from potentially unreliable foreign sources.

Nonproliferation and counter-terrorism concerns have long been intertwined with nuclear technology 

and policy debates—in fact these concerns were among the factors that motivated the U.S. 

government’s earlier decision (in the 1970s) to forego reprocessing in favor of a once-through fuel cycle. 

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 added a new dimension to this set of issues, raising concern 

about the potential for similar direct attacks or acts of sabotage against nuclear facilities in addition to 

more familiar concerns about the potential for theft or diversion of nuclear materials and capabilities 

toward weapons applications. 

Enrichment, reprocessing, and recycled fuel fabrication are generally recognized as particularly sensitive 

elements of the fuel cycle from the standpoint of weapons proliferation concerns. These technologies 

can not only serve nuclear power needs, but can give countries the technical and physical capacity to 

obtain the direct-use nuclear materials required for a weapons program. Proliferation risks include the 

potential that countries might attempt to secretly divert materials from civilian nuclear facilities that 

they have declared to the IAEA under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that countries might 

use know-how and equipment from declared programs to aid the construction of clandestine 

production facilities, for example clandestine enrichment plants, and that under some circumstances 

countries might choose to withdraw from the NPT and then overtly misuse materials and facilities.

 

51 For example, see The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. 52 Quantities of steel and concrete used in construction of nuclear plants are approximately half those in for conventional coal 

plants and 1/10 those for wind. Per F. Peterson, Haihua Zhao, and Rober Petroski, “Metal and Concrete Inputs for Several 

Nuclear Power Plants,” Report UCBTH-05-001, UC Berkeley, February (2005). S. Pacca and A. Horvath, Environ. Sci. Technol., 36, 

3194-3200 (2002).R.H. Bryan and I.T. Dudley, “Estimated Quantities of Materials Contained in a 1000-MW(e) PWR Power 

Plant,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TM-4515, June (1974).
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 28 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Measuring the nonproliferation or counter-terrorism characteristics of various nuclear energy systems is 

far from straightforward; among the technical considerations that come into play is what quantities and 

forms of sensitive nuclear material (including separated plutonium) exist at various points in the fuel 

cycle; what level of uranium enrichment capacity is needed to support the fuel cycle; and whether the 

materials separated as part of a given fuel cycle would be particularly attractive and/or particularly 

susceptible to undetected diversion for malicious purposes. Non-technical considerations, such as the 

extent to which a country might feel threatened by other countries, are also important.

Waste Management, as it relates to nuclear energy systems, focuses on the need to manage some 

nuclear wastes over the extended timeframes that these wastes can remain radiotoxic and hazardous to 

humans and the environment. In fact, benefits from a long-term waste management standpoint—

including possible reductions in the quantity of long-lived radionuclides, changes in the chemical 

stability of different waste forms, or reductions in repository heat load—are more recently among the 

major rationales cited for pursuing alternatives to the once-through fuel cycle. Given the existence of 

many possible waste streams and different ways of characterizing those streams, a variety of metrics 

can be used to quantify waste-related impacts, including waste volume or mass, radiotoxicity, short- and 

long-term heat generation, and estimated peak dose rate for the maximally exposed individual at the 

perimeter of a waste repository or facility. (The latter metric depends not only on the character of the 

waste, but on specifics of repository design and geologic environment. In most cases long-term 

repository performance is dominated by a small number of long-lived radionuclides.)

Efforts to evaluate the waste management implications of advanced fuel cycles are complicated by the 

system of nuclear waste classification currently in use in the United States. This system is based on the 

origin and the concentration of certain listed radionuclides for many wastes and is not informed by a 

comprehensive assessment of the waste characteristics important to the performance of disposal 

systems. The Subcommittee notes that even though many stakeholders believe the time has come for 

an overhaul of the U.S. waste classification system, there is also concern that changes could foster the 

perception that wastes are being inappropriately reclassified into lower classes or have other 

unintended consequences—especially considering the complex web of laws and regulations that rely on 

the current system. Adding to this ambivalence about reform is a widespread perception that the 

current approach to classification—for nuclear waste generally, and for low-level waste (LLW) in 

particular—is adequately protective of human health and has been made to work, despite its 

shortcomings and complexities. These considerations notwithstanding, the NRC staff has identified a 

number of options for revising the waste classification system and addressing other aspects of LLW 

disposal on which it will obtain stakeholder input during the next year. Additionally, the NRC staff is 

planning to identify a number of options for changing the definition of HLW (as part of its effort to 

develop a framework for licensing fuel reprocessing plants) and plans to send a paper on the framework 

to the Commissioners by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2011. The Subcommittee endorses and encourages 

efforts underway at the NRC to the revise the waste classification system.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 29 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

3.3 Challenges in Comparing Nuclear Energy Systems

A central objective of this Subcommittee is to qualitatively evaluate nuclear energy systems and 

technologies to assess whether potentially significant improvements are possible compared to existing 

fuel cycle technology. Many challenges arise in attempting to compare different nuclear energy 

systems. First, such comparisons generally rely on analyses conducted by the designers or supporters of 

the fuel cycle(s) in question. As such, they often reflect different underlying assumptions and owner 

biases, and make use of different metrics. All of these challenges are exacerbated by substantial and 

inconsistent uncertainties in our understanding of the characteristics and performance of systems that 

have never been deployed.

When comparing the potential benefits and liabilities of different nuclear energy systems (fuel cycles 

and deployment strategies), for example, numerous assumptions must be made—many of them 

involving information that is not available for advanced technologies that are still under development, 

including:

1. The growth rate of nuclear electricity production;

2. Current and ultimate performance, cost, and reliability of competing nuclear energy system 

technologies;

3. Waste generation rates, composition, and characteristics;

4. Measures for nonproliferation, nuclear material and energy security, and safeguards in an 

uncertain future domestic and international environment;

5. Price and availability of natural resources into the future;

6. Constraints on the size/capacity of future waste disposal sites; and

7. The importance of various radionuclides (e.g., TRU vs. fission products) to the performance of

unknown future repository sites.

The problem of uncertainty applies not only to these input assumptions, but to assessments of the 

candidate technologies themselves. Most advanced fuel cycle technologies have never been 

constructed or operated at a commercial scale, and many exist only in paper studies or small-scale 

laboratory and test reactor experiments. As a result, the behavior of these systems when deployed on a 

large scale is subject to significant uncertainty and requires extrapolation from existing technology. 

Furthermore, even existing reprocessing technologies deployed at commercial scales in France, the UK 

and Japan, have large uncertainties in their economic metrics. As a consequence, most fuel cycle 

systems analyses produce results with large uncertainty bands, whether explicitly indicated or not, and 

are best used for a qualitative, comparative analysis rather than for a predictive estimate of how 

different systems would perform if they were actually implemented at scale.
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Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

3.4 Comparing Fuel Cycle and Nuclear Energy System Options

The baseline for our qualitative comparison is a nuclear energy strategy based on once-through LWRs. 

We take the once-through LWR fuel cycle as the baseline because it is the dominant type of nuclear 

energy system currently deployed in the United States and in most other nuclear nations. It should be 

noted that existing once-through LWR technology also provides opportunities for continuing 

performance improvements: examples include improved cladding, which could allow for higher fuel 

burn up and improved safety features.

A system involving a modified open cycle was selected for comparison chiefly because it is the only 

other fuel cycle strategy that is currently being utilized for commercial power production, specifically 

through the use of MOX fuel.

53 Used in France since the 1970s, MOX fuel is also used in reactors in 

Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan. The United States is currently building a MOX fuel 

fabrication facility in South Carolina to utilize excess defense plutonium, and the UK, China, and Russia 

are also in various stages of operating with or planning for the use of MOX fuel.

A system using fast reactors and a closed fuel cycle was considered because its efficient use of uranium 

resources has the potential to be sustainable for centuries while reducing the amount of long-lived 

radionuclides in the resulting waste, which in turn would allow for more spent fuel to be loaded in a

given repository. This cycle would also greatly reduce the need for fresh mined uranium and would 

eventually eliminate the need for uranium enrichment.

The defining feature of the fourth system is a high-temperature reactor that can achieve temperatures 

greater than 600 degrees Celsius (°C) (typical LWR outlet temperatures are about 300°C) operating on a 

once-through fuel cycle. This system was selected because it has the potential to displace the use of 

fossil fuel across a broad range of energy sectors, not just electricity production. Examples of energyintensive industries where high-temperature nuclear process heat could be used include cement and 

steel manufacturing, and petroleum refining (see figure 11). High-temperature nuclear process heat 

could also be used to produce hydrogen for transportation fuels by directly decomposing water instead 

of using electrolysis or decomposing natural gas, and the high power conversion efficiency can also 

make dry cooling and thermal desalination of seawater practical.

DOE, in collaboration with commercial partners, is currently planning to build a demonstration plant of 

this type, called the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP), at the INL. The reactor would be capable of 

generating electricity as well as supplying process heat. 

 

53 Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) consists of a mix of recycled plutonium and uranium.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 31 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Figure 11. Temperatures Required for Various Industrial Applications and Outlet Temperatures of 

Various Reactor Designs54

Many additional system options exist that have received varying levels of study. For example, nuclear 

energy systems that involve a fast-spectrum reactor capable of achieving very high temperatures by 

using a molten salt or gas coolant, or a thermal-spectrum, high-temperature molten-salt reactor using 

thorium have also been proposed. Such systems could potentially offer many of the combined benefits 

of the alternatives listed. However, these systems have not been systematically studied and their

component technologies are less well developed.

The results of this comparison for the baseline strategy and for the three nuclear energy systems

selected are shown in table 5 and are discussed in greater detail below. Each of the four nuclear energy 

systems is assumed to produce the same amount of electric power and the outcomes are stated in 

relative terms in relation to the baseline once-through LWR system strategy. The entries in this table 

generally refer to a steady-state condition. The Commission recognizes that in some cases a long 

transition time is necessary to reach a steady state. As noted earlier in this section, many of the 

comparisons in table 5 are qualitative, because the available technical literature is not comparable or 

consistent due to differing assumptions and the status of the technologies differs widely (LWR systems 

are deployed, fast reactors require more development and demonstration, and gas-cooled reactors even 

more). 

 

54 Adapted from Idaho National Laboratory, Next Generation Nuclear Plant Research and Development Program Plan, 

INL/EXT/05-0281 (January 2005). VHTR = very high temperature reactor, HTGR = High temperature gas reactor, LMFBR = liquid 

metal fast breeder reactor, HWR = heavy water reactor.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 32 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

In summary, table 5 compares four nuclear energy systems: (1) a once-through LWR system using highburnup uranium dioxide system [at least 45 GWd/metric ton] representative of near-term technology, 

(2) a modified-open cycle (MOC) in which eight high-burnup uranium dioxide fuel assemblies are 

reprocessed to make one high-burnup MOX fuel assembly which is irradiated for one cycle and then 

managed as waste, (3) a high-temperature [~600 °C] helium-cooled reactor (HTGR) operated on a oncethrough basis using very-high-burnup uranium dioxide fuel in a graphite matrix to produce electricity or 

process heat, and (4) a closed sodium cooled fast reactor system involving sustained reprocessing and 

recycle of MOX fuel. The comparisons in the table are based on a hypothetical system in which all 

nuclear power is produced by each system (i.e., transition effects are ignored). 

Noteworthy assumptions for some of the criteria that are not already stated in table 5 are as follows:

• Uranium utilization: uranium recovered in the MOC system is assumed to be recovered and reenriched to make fresh uranium dioxide (UOX) fuel, and the MOX fuel replaces uranium dioxide 

fuel. In the closed cycle, uranium is recovered and recycled, but with approximately 1 percent

losses during each recycle.

• Climate change impacts and energy security: HTGR is planned to achieve temperatures that 

make it possible to displace fossil-fuel use in energy-intensive non-electric sectors.

• Nonproliferation and counter-terrorism: Once-through systems would be sending plutonium in 

SNF to a repository after relatively short cooling times. MOX and closed cycle systems keep 

much more plutonium in reprocessing plant, MOX fabrication plant, and reactor storage.

• Disposal safety: Once-through systems with high-temperature reactors are about the same as 

the baseline given uncertainties in HTGR burnup and fuel composition. Reduction of TRU in a

MOC is based on ORIGEN2 calculations. Reduction of TRU in a closed cycle is based on literature 

and staff calculations with caveats concerning duration stated. The MOC system includes 

disposal of intact MOX fuel after one irradiation cycle. Reduction in fuel cycle risk from MOC and 

closed cycles based on scaling results given in G. E. Michaels, Impact of Actinide Recycle on 

Nuclear Fuel Cycle Heath Risks, ORNL/M-1947 (June 1992) and OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, 

Radiological Impacts of Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Options: A Comparative Study (2000).

• Waste volume: Volume requiring repository disposal and volume acceptable for near-surface 

disposal (A-B-C LLW plus uranium mill tailings plus depleted uranium) are addressed separately. 

Unit waste volumes are based on staff estimates using literature data.

• Repository space: Assume 40%+ thermal efficiency for HTGR. Space requirements for MOC 

wastes (UOX HLW plus intact MOX fuel) based on integrated decay heat using ORIGEN2 results.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 33 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Table 5. A Comparison of the Existing Once-Through, Conventional Light-Water Reactor Fuel Cycle 

with Representative Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems in the Long Term

Criterion

Once-Through 

LWR

Once-Through w/HighTemperature Reactor LWR Modified Open CycleFast-Spectrum Reactor with 

Closed Fuel Cycle

Nuclear 

Energy 

Description

Clad uranium 

oxide fuels 

irradiated in 

LWRs with 

evolutionary 

improvements

High-temperature 

reactors (such as those 

using graphite-based 

fuels) capable of 

temperatures over 600°C 

operating on a oncethrough fuel cycle. Being 

pursued in DOE’s Next 

Generation Nuclear Plant 

project

Clad uranium- and mixedoxide fuels irradiated in 

LWRs with evolutionary 

improvements. MOX fuel 

is irradiated once and then 

sent to repository.

Fast-spectrum liquid-metalcooled reactors capable of 

continuous recycle of 

actinides

SAFETY

Reactor and 

fuel cycle 

safety55

Baseline, with 

potential for 

further 

improvement.

Potential for 

improvement; all must 

meet similar regulatory 

requirements.

Potential for 

improvement; all must 

meet similar regulatory 

requirements.

Potential for improvement; 

all must meet similar 

regulatory requirements.

COST

Capital and 

operating 

costs

Baseline Test reactors have 

operated well, but demo 

(Fort St. Vrain) was 

unreliable. Fuel costs are 

uncertain and may be 

high. RD&D is needed to 

provide a basis for 

design, licensing, and 

evaluating long-term 

economic viability. 

Capital cost increased 

because of need to build 

reprocessing and MOX 

fuel fabrication plants. 

Operating costs also 

increased due to the high 

cost of fabricating fuels

containing Pu. Cost of 

electricity is increased a 

few to several percent. 

Technology is relatively 

mature with evolutionary 

improvements largely in 

the hands of industry.

Previously built reactors 

(mostly prototype/demo) 

were often unreliable and 

not economic. Significant 

capital cost for recycle 

facilities. RD&D is needed to 

provide a basis for design, 

licensing, and evaluating 

long-term economic 

viability.56 Operating costs 

relative to baseline largely 

depend on the future price 

of uranium, fuel fabrication 

cost, and operational 

reliability.

 55 Although the safety evaluation of the once-through fuel cycle is marked as the baseline – this does not suppose the safety is 

perfect. Even given consistent and approved safety design standards across fuel cycles, they still have room for improvement. 56 “No existing deterministic cost study of full recycling is credible, because there has been no engineering demonstration of full 

recycling.” Testimony delivered by Geoff Rothwell on August 30, 2010.
Table 5. (continued)

Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 34 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Criterion

Once-Through 

LWR

Once-Through w/HighTemperature Reactor LWR Modified Open CycleFast-Spectrum Reactor with 

Closed Fuel Cycle

SUSTAINABILITY

Uranium 

utilization57

Baseline Similar uranium 

requirements, although 

can vary by design.

~19% reduction in 

uranium requirements.

~95% reduction in uranium 

requirements.

Climate 

change 

impacts

Baseline Potential for major 

reduction in carbon 

dioxide by using nuclear 

process heat in fossilenergy-intensive 

industries and to produce 

hydrogen for noncarbon-based 

transportation fuels.

About the same as the 

baseline.

About the same as baseline

Energy 

security

Baseline Potentially large benefit 

in reducing petroleum 

imports now used to fuel 

non-electricity sectors.

About the same as the 

baseline.

Modest benefit from 

potential for long term 

reliance on indigenous 

uranium resources.

NONPROLIFERATION AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

NonproliferationBaseline Reference designs 

require similar 

enrichment capacity that 

is capable of producing 

8%-20% uranium 

enrichment. Fuel is more 

difficult to reprocess than 

LWR fuel.

Involves use of 

reprocessing, enrichment, 

and MOX fuel fabrication 

technology, and 

deployment of facilities 

for same. Increased 

proliferation risk from 

substantial normalized 

inventory of Pu or Pu-plus 

other actinides in reactors 

and the fuel cycle.

Involves use of reprocessing 

and plutonium-bearing fuel 

fabrication technology, and 

deployment of facilities for 

same. Enrichment 

technology needed during 

transition to fast reactors.

Increased proliferation risk

from substantial normalized 

inventory of Pu or Pu-plus 

other actinides in reactors 

and the fuel cycle.

CounterterrorismBaseline Similar to baseline Involves production and 

inventory of co-processed 

nuclear materials 

(U/Np/Pu) and 5%-10% 

enriched uranium, and 

fuels containing same.

Increased security risk due 

to separated materials 

and additional facilities

and transportation.

Involves production and 

inventory of co-processed

nuclear materials (U/Np/Pu) 

and fuels containing same.

Increased security risk due to 

separated materials and 

additional facilities and 

transportation.

 57 The table compares nuclear energy systems in the long-term which means the R&D has been successfully completed, the fuel 

cycle in question has been adopted, and the transition phase is over so that the US is relying on just that system.
Table 5. (continued)

Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 35 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Criterion

Once-Through 

LWR

Once-Through w/HighTemperature Reactor LWR Modified Open CycleFast-Spectrum Reactor with 

Closed Fuel Cycle

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Disposal 

safety: 

toxicity and 

longevity of 

waste

Baseline Repository: Similar to 

baseline 

Fuel Cycle: Similar public 

and occupational risk 

from mining and milling.

Repository: Noticeable 

reduction in the amount 

of TRU in wastes. Tailored 

waste form for ~90% of 

the HLW

Fuel Cycle: ~15%-20% 

reduction in fuel cycle 

public and occupational 

risk from reduced mining 

and milling. Although 

there is an increase in 

emissions from 

reprocessing, overall risk 

is reduced as a result of 

reduced risks on the front 

end.

Repository: Tailored waste 

form for fission products; 

potential for reduction in 

long-term repository dose 

from TRU elements if recycle 

is sustained for decades to 

centuries

Fuel Cycle: ~85% reduction 

in fuel cycle public and 

occupational risk from 

reduced mining and milling, 

increase from emissions 

from reprocessing.

Volume of 

waste58

Baseline ~10X increase in SNF 

volume going to 

repository.

About the same non-mill 

tailings LLW as baseline.

Similar repository waste 

volume: less SNF/HLW, 

more secondary waste. 

~20% decrease in nearsurface wastes, esp. mill 

tailings and DU. Besides 

mill tailings and depleted 

uranium, about the same 

of LLW as baseline.

~40% increase in repository 

waste volume: less HLW, 

more secondary waste. 

~95% decrease in nearsurface wastes, primarily due 

to mill tailings and DU. ~40% 

decrease in non-mill tailings 

low-level waste due to 

greatly reduced throughput 

in the front end of the fuel 

cycle.

Repository 

space 

requirements

Baseline ~25% reduction due to 

higher reactor efficiency.

Similar to baseline, with 

some reduction in longterm decay heat 

generation.

~75% decrease in repository 

space required when TRU 

are recovered and recycle is 

sustained over many

decades to a couple of 

centuries.

Below we discuss in more detail the results of our qualitative comparison between the baseline oncethrough system and the alternative systems we considered with respect to each of the major evaluative 

criteria introduced in section 3.2.

 

58 Assumption: Depleted uranium is currently assumed to be acceptable for near-surface disposal. If repository disposal is 

required for depleted uranium, this increases the volume of repository waste by as much as 3 to 30 times for all but the closed 

fuel cycle, although total decay heat and toxicity are not affected for 100,000 years.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 36 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

Safety—New reactors constructed in the future will continue to be governed by regulatory 

requirements for safety. These requirements may be modified in light of the still-unfolding events in 

Japan, and we can expect new reactors to incorporate design improvements to address any relevant 

lessons learned from the Fukushima accident. These improvements may focus on areas such as assuring 

long-term effective cooling if back-up electrical power supplies are lost, having the capability to rely 

upon alternative heat sinks if the normal heat sink is disabled, having the capacity to prevent and 

mitigate the effects of explosive materials such as hydrogen, and assuring the capability to rapidly 

connect and activate portable electricity generation and coolant injection pumps.

It is reasonable for society to expect that new nuclear infrastructure will have higher safety levels than 

existing infrastructure, just as society requires for other civil infrastructure (in the United States, for 

example, building code requirements are updated periodically). The NRC has established policy goals for 

advanced reactors that encourage similar improvement and that will guide U.S. design efforts for new 

reactor technologies.59 New reactor and fuel cycle facility technologies can be expected to rely 

increasingly on passive safety systems and other design features that improve safety, economics, 

physical security and safeguards in a synergistic way. Licensing new safety systems will require the use 

of risk-informed performance criteria and best-estimate simulation methods that include quantitative 

measures of uncertainty. These methods have been pioneered in the United States in the licensing of 

new ALWR designs using passive safety systems. More recent experience with the commercial 

development of small modular reactors has highlighted the importance of early interactions between 

reactor developers and the NRC, along with the importance of having an established regulatory 

framework to guide early investment and design decisions. 

Cost—Cost remains a key issue for nuclear energy and one that can be expected to strongly influence 

the industry’s future prospects. Recent studies indicate that current once-through nuclear energy 

systems can be competitive with coal and natural gas electricity generation.60 Because the capital cost 

of reactors contributes substantially more to the cost of nuclear electricity than fuel and waste disposal 

costs, reactor construction costs and reliability clearly play an important role. Capital costs depend on 

factors such as the total quantity of materials used in construction, the degree to which construction can 

be modularized and shifted into factories, and the overall construction schedule. These costs are 

difficult to estimate in the United States, given the length of time that has elapsed since the last U.S. 

reactors were constructed. Uncertainty over capital costs can be expected to persist until the first few 

new advanced LWRs are constructed in this country.

In the modified open cycle, capital and back-end operating costs are higher because of the need to build 

and operate facilities to reprocess uranium oxide fuel and to fabricate the recovered 

neptunium/plutonium and some of the uranium into fresh fuel. However, front-end operating costs are 

reduced because less natural uranium mining, conversion, and enrichment services are required. 

 59 SECY-08-0130, “Updated Policy Statement on Regulation of Advanced Reactors,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

September 11, 2008 (ADAMS Accession No. ML082261489). 60 MIT, 2011. Table 2.2 shows that levelized cost of new nuclear power is 6.6 cents per kwh, compared to coal at 6.2 and natural 

gas at 6.5. This assumes a natural gas price of $7/million BTU, a risk premium reduction through federal first-mover incentives, 

and no cost for carbon emissions.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 37 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

On balance, most estimates project that the levelized cost of nuclear electricity at the bus-bar from a 

modified open cycle would range from being essentially the same as the cost of the once-through fuel 

cycle61,62 to an additional 15 percent higher.63 In a 2007 report to Congress,

64 the Congressional Budget 

Office (CBO) stated that the costs of a modified open cycle would be approximately 25 percent higher 

than for the once-through cycle, although studies that the CBO researched for its report estimated the 

costs of a modified open cycle at 6–100 percent65,66 more than the once-through cycle.

Experience from the construction and operation of a number of commercial prototype metal-cooled 

(mostly sodium) fast reactors and one high-temperature helium-cooled reactor can help shed some light 

on the cost issues likely to arise for fast reactor closed fuel cycle and high-temperature once-through 

fuel cycle systems. While some of these reactors produced electricity, all had high capital costs and all 

were less reliable than what is required of a commercially viable nuclear reactor. These deficiencies 

must be successfully addressed if these reactors are to become economically viable. Doing so should be 

a primary target of future RD&D programs.

Sustainability—This criterion involves three considerations: (1) resource consumption, (2) the potential 

for global climate impacts, and (3) energy security. 

The issue of resource consumption relates to how efficiently a nuclear energy system uses the natural 

resources underpinning it. For nuclear energy systems these resources include fuels (uranium but also 

possibly thorium), as well as materials used in the construction of nuclear facilities. In general, the 

construction of nuclear power plants uses relatively small amounts of construction materials, so the 

focus of sustainability assessments is typically on fuel resources. The LWR-based modified open cycle 

requires about 19 percent less uranium than the baseline once-through cycle with about half of this 

reduction attributable to the reprocessing and recycling of plutonium for reuse as MOX fuel and the 

other half attributable to the re-enrichment of recovered uranium to produce more enriched uranium 

and depleted uranium tails. This nuclear energy system also has commensurately lower conversion and 

enrichment requirements. Reprocessing spent MOX more than once (not considered in table 5) offers 

some additional benefits but with diminishing returns because the fissile content of the plutonium is 

degraded in the LWR’s thermal spectrum and eventually cannot be recycled in a way that meets inreactor safety requirements. At most, three recycles may be possible although countries that have 

implemented a modified open cycle use only a single recycle.

 

61 Overview of AREVA’s Nuclear Fuel Recycling Activities - Presentation to The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear 

Future from the La Hague Facility Visit on February 20-21, 2011. www.brc.gov. 62 MIT, 2011, pg. 103 notes the levelized cost of electricity for the modified cycle would cost less than 2 percent more than the 

once-through cycle. 63 EPRI, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Cost Comparison Between Once-Through and Plutonium Single-Recycling in Pressurized Water 

Reactors, EPRI Report 1018575, Feb 2009 Report. 64 “Costs of Reprocessing Versus Directly Disposing of Spent Nuclear Fuel,” Statement of Peter Orzag before the Committee of 

Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate. November 14, 2007. 

65 Boston Consulting Group, Economic Assessment of Used Nuclear Fuel Management in the Unites States, July 2006 66 Bunn, et al., Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, December 2003.
Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technology Subcommittee 38 January 2012

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

In the case of the once-through high-temperature reactor (HTR), the amount of uranium required is 

roughly similar to that required for LWR systems. This is because the much higher thermal efficiency of 

the HTR is offset by its less efficient utilization of fuel utilization relative to the level of fuel enrichment

required. However, the fact that both the baseline LWR and HTR systems are once-through imposes a 

fundamental limit on how efficiently uranium is utilized: in both cases 90 percent or more of the mined 

uranium ends up as depleted uranium after the enrichment process.

The situation in the case of a fast reactor operating on a closed uranium-plutonium fuel cycle is 

different. Fast reactors can produce more fissile material than they consume (see earlier discussion of 

breeder reactors). This has two important implications for uranium utilization: First, the uranium used 

in this type of reactor is not enriched so there is no depleted uranium stream. Second, depleted 

uranium from once-through nuclear energy systems can be used as fuel. Because the fuel is 

reprocessed and recycled, the uranium can also be recycled. 

Thus this system can, in principal, increase the energy recovered from mined uranium by a factor of 

50 or more with the amount of energy recovered being limited only by uranium losses during recycle. 

Fast and thermal spectrum reactors could, in principal, recover similar amounts of energy from thorium.

A second consideration under the criterion of sustainability concerns the potential for advanced nuclear 

energy systems to help address global climate change. Many scientists and policymakers are concerned 

that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion are adversely affecting the global climate.

67 

To the extent that nuclear energy can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion, 

nuclear energy can help address global warming concerns.

At present, the climate benefits of nuclear energy systems are limited to displacing fossil fuel use in the

electricity sector, which accounts for 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption. The other major energyconsuming sectors in the United States are transportation (29 percent of U.S. primary energy 

consumption), industry (21 percent of U.S. primary energy consumption), and commercial/residential 

buildings (10 percent of U.S. primary energy consumption). The transportation sector is almost 

completely reliant on petroleum products, while the industrial and commercial/residential sectors rely 

on a mix of fuels, including natural gas. Displacing the use of fossil fuels in these sectors requires that 

two issues be addressed. 

First, a number of important industrial processes require process heat at temperatures well above what 

can be achieved by LWRs (perhaps 350°C) or liquid metal cooled fast reactors (perhaps 550°C). 

Examples include iron and steel, glass, and cement manufacturing. Second, displacing petroleum 

products in many transportation and other applications may require a combustible, non-carbon fuel 

source.

 

67 This view is expressed in several reports of the U.S. National Academies. See National Academy of Sciences, America’s 

Climate Choices, available at: http://americasclimatechoices.org/ACC_Final_Report_Brief04.pdf.
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Nuclear energy could offset the use of fossil fuels for transportation in at least two ways. If plug-in 

hybrid or all-electric vehicles achieve significant market penetration, nuclear-generated electricity can 

be used to supply power to these vehicles. Another possible approach is to use nuclear energy to 

produce hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be burned directly (like natural gas) or it can be made into 

low-carbon liquid fuels that can be burned/combusted in engines or used in fuel cells. The most 

common method used to produce hydrogen68 currently is steam reforming, a process that involves 

reacting water with natural gas to yield the hydrogen—unfortunately, this process also yields carbon 

dioxide. It is possible to produce hydrogen using chemical reactions that do not involve carbon-based 

fuels, but such processes require temperatures well above what can be achieved by LWRs or fast 

reactors. High-temperature reactors may offer an alternative to both of these hydrogen production 

methods. For example, the high-temperature heat from the reactor coolant could be transferred to an 

intermediate fluid such as a molten salt and the heated salt could then be used, either to supply process 

heat directly or to produce hydrogen for use in making other fuels.

A third consideration under the criterion of sustainability is energy security, which is usually understood 

to be a function of the nation’s dependence on unreliable and/or expensive energy resources. While 

the U.S. economy is self-reliant and hence energy secure when it comes to coal and natural gas, it is 

clearly reliant on petroleum supplies that are expensive and subject to disruption, particularly to the 

extent that global oil production is concentrated in unstable regions of the world. Energy security 

concerns are an important reason why some countries that are not as well endowed with indigenous 

energy resources as the United States (i.e., France and Japan) embarked on aggressive nuclear energy 

programs long ago. We therefore looked at the potential for advanced nuclear energy systems to 

substantially reduce U.S. dependence on petroleum as part of the qualitative comparison described in 

the previous section. The result, for each of the four systems considered, was the same: only the 

system that features a high-temperature reactor has the potential to yield domestically produced liquid 

fuel supplies. The other three nuclear energy systems we considered do not. Meanwhile, a lesser 

advantage of the fast-spectrum closed cycle is that it uses so little uranium that users would be assured 

access to uranium supply (e.g., from depleted uranium tails, indigenous natural uranium supplies, or 

uranium from seawater).

Nonproliferation—This section and the next discuss nonproliferation and counter-terrorism in the 

narrow context of comparing alternative nuclear energy systems. Chapter 5 provides broader, policylevel treatment of these issues. 

The Subcommittee believes that nonproliferation and counter-terrorism are particularly important 

considerations that have not always received the attention they deserve in evaluations of nuclear fuel 

cycles and nuclear energy system alternatives. The potential proliferation pathways created by the four 

fuel cycle options listed above depend in part upon the physical configuration of the systems and, in 

particular, on the physical location and ownership of the facilities that are used to perform uranium 

 

68 A small fraction (~4%) of the hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water, which could avoid carbon dioxide emissions if 

non-fossil electricity were used but the resulting hydrogen costs 3-10 times hydrogen produced by steam reforming and so it is 

only economic if very cheap electricity (e.g., hydropower) is available. 
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enrichment and reprocessing and recycled fuel fabrication services. As described in Section 5, a number 

of institutional and technical safeguards against proliferation have been established under the NPT and 

other international and bilateral agreements. While none of these approaches are perfect, taken 

together they have helped reduce the number of states that are thought to pose proliferation risks. At 

the same time, they have provided mechanisms for isolating those problematic countries that remain so 

they do not become role models for other emerging nuclear energy nations.

Access to civil nuclear energy technology can provide a significant inducement for nations to take on 

legal obligations related to nonproliferation, such as accepting safeguards monitoring of their civil 

nuclear energy infrastructure by the IAEA under a comprehensive safeguards agreement. In exchange 

for access to certain technologies, countries could potentially also be expected or required to ratify an 

IAEA Additional Protocol giving the IAEA broader rights to perform inspections to verify the absence of 

undeclared, clandestine nuclear material production activities. 

But access to civil nuclear energy technology also provides capabilities that could potentially contribute 

to weapons proliferation. Potential proliferation pathways include the clandestine diversion of 

materials from declared facilities, the use of technical know-how and equipment from declared facilities 

to aid the construction of separate, clandestine production facilities, and, under some circumstances, 

withdrawal from the NPT and then overt misuse of materials and facilities, commonly referred to as 

“breakout.”

The reactor technologies associated with the four fuel cycle options considered in this report can be 

safeguarded effectively to provide timely detection of any attempt to divert fresh or irradiated fuel, 

because the fuel elements and assemblies can be accounted for as items. Thus nuclear power reactors 

are typically unattractive sources for the clandestine diversion of material. The reactors we considered 

likewise differ significantly in design from the types of small production reactors—similar to the 

production reactor constructed by the North Koreans—that might be attractive for a clandestine 

production facility. And while power reactors could provide a source of low-burn-up irradiated fuel if a 

nation were to choose to withdraw from the NPT, without infrastructure and experience with 

technologies like hot cells and reprocessing, the subsequent effort to process material and produce 

weapons would be technologically risky and time consuming. For these reasons, the proliferation risks 

associated with nuclear power reactors per se are generally viewed as being substantially lower than the 

proliferation risks associated with enrichment and reprocessing facilities.

All four of the fuel cycle options described above require substantial and large-scale deployment of 

enrichment infrastructure. While the high temperature reactor and modified open fuel cycle options 

require more and less enrichment capacity than the baseline open cycle, respectively, the differences 

are modest and cause no qualitative change in the proliferation risks posed by enrichment. Even for the 

fully closed cycle, substantial enrichment capacity remains necessary during the transition to a nuclear 

fleet based on fast reactors. The proliferation risks associated with enrichment depend very strongly on 

how enrichment capabilities are deployed. National enrichment programs provide a pathway for 

breakout and, of equal concern, access to technical know-how and equipment that can be used to 
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construct clandestine enrichment facilities that are difficult to detect. Chapter 5 discusses the 

importance of developing multinational or regional fuel cycle centers, with a principal goal being that all 

nations procure enrichment services from these sources rather than developing dedicated national 

enrichment programs. Broad utilization of multinational and regional enrichment services can be 

encouraged by providing other attractive services, in particular spent fuel take away.

Spent fuel is reprocessed in both the modified open cycle and closed cycle options we considered. 

Reprocessing involves the separation of plutonium-bearing materials in bulk form. The application of 

IAEA safeguards to provide timely detection of diversion is substantially more difficult and challenging 

for bulk materials than for individual items (e.g., reactor fuel assemblies). While safeguards methods 

have been developed for conventional large reprocessing plants, further improvement remains possible 

to increase the robustness and reliability of detection and to reduce the probability of false alarms or 

false positives due to plant events or safeguards systems failures. Further work is also required to 

develop more effective and better integrated safeguards methods for advanced reprocessing 

technologies. As with enrichment, national reprocessing programs can provide a pathway for breakout 

and can simplify the development of separate, clandestine reprocessing facilities. 

The proliferation risks posed by reprocessing are broadly similar to those from enrichment. One 

approach to limiting proliferation risk from both technologies is the development of multinational and 

regional fuel cycle facilities, as discussed further in section 5.

Counter-Terrorism—Terrorism remains a global problem. Related risks from civil nuclear energy 

systems arise from two primary sources: (1) the possibility that nuclear facilities or transport operations 

could be sabotaged to cause a radiologic release and (2) the possibility that nuclear materials could be 

stolen for use in nuclear explosives or other radiological weapons. Efforts to reduce these risks to date 

have involved a combination of international cooperative activities and national activities. The 

protection of nuclear facilities and materials is a national responsibility but there exist a variety of 

international efforts that the United States leads or participates in to assist countries in strengthening 

their own national-level protections; these efforts merit further and increased support.

Because nuclear reactors operate with substantial amounts of stored energy and inventories of shortlived fission products, their safety systems require effective physical protection from acts of radiological 

sabotage. The new Generation III+ reactor designs simplify this protection substantially, because they 

provide a greater degree of physical separation between redundant safety equipment, making this 

equipment more difficult to disable, and because they implement passive safety systems to a greater 

degree. Since passive safety systems do not require routine access for inspection and maintenance, 

they are easier to “harden” and are more resilient to sabotage.

The irradiated fuel produced by reactors provides another potential target for radiological sabotage. 

While the physical protection of spent fuel is a topic that was covered by the BRC’s Storage and 

Transportation Subcommittee, it is important to note that spent fuel stored at operating reactors can be 

protected by the same physical protection forces that are present at plant sites to protect reactors. 
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Spent fuel is generally not an attractive target for theft: it is bulky, highly radioactive, and difficult to 

process in a way that would allow terrorists to recover material that could be used in nuclear explosives. 

By contrast, old spent fuel, which emits much lower levels of radiation, may be at increased risk of theft 

in the long term.

Enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities that produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel pose very small 

risks for radiological sabotage and for theft of materials, because LEU has relatively low radiotoxicity and 

cannot be used directly to manufacture nuclear explosives. Therefore, LEU enrichment and fuel 

fabrication facilities typically require only minimal physical protection.

All spent fuel reprocessing methods that chemically separate fission products produce a plutoniumbearing product stream with radiation levels that are too low to provide self-protection, particularly 

against terrorists who are willing to risk adverse health impacts or death. The risk of theft of 

reprocessed plutonium must be taken very seriously, because even a low-yield event from a crude 

terrorist nuclear explosive design would have devastating consequences in a crowded urban area, as 

would the disruption caused by widespread fear of additional explosions in other cities. 

In sum, all reprocessing and recycled fuel fabrication facilities, along with any related transportation

facilities and operations, require effective physical protection measures to counter the risk of external 

theft, as well as effective human reliability programs to reduce the risk of insider theft.69 Full-recycle 

reprocessing methods, where all recycled materials are handled exclusive in heavily shielded concrete 

hot cells to protect workers can provide large, passive physical barriers to theft. These passive barriers 

provided by hot cells can be more effective than typical bank vaults because hot cells do not require 

doors for routine human access. Therefore, full-recycle fuel cycles can be expected to require less 

intensive physical security measures than do conventional reprocessing technologies.

Under all of the potential fuel cycle options, radiological risks from acts of sabotage will be larger for 

older reactors, given the expectation that designers of new reactor and fuel cycle facilities will continue 

to introduce improved design features such as passive safety systems that are intrinsically more robust 

in case of attempted sabotage. Thus, the key issue for controlling the risk of radiological sabotage will 

be to assure continuing and adequate investments in physical security systems and in human reliability 

programs, particularly for older reactor and fuel cycle facilities.

70

For the baseline once-through LWR fuel cycle, as well as for high-temperature reactors, the most likely 

long-term scenarios for theft of plutonium involve old spent fuel dispersed at shutdown reactor sites in 

other areas of the world, where the fuel may be stored without adequate physical security. Though the 

security of interim SNF storage facilities is a topic that was addressed by the BRC’s Storage and 

 

69 Examples of personnel reliability program measures include background checks, portal access controls, portal radiation 

monitors, tamper-evident seals and tags for cabinets and valve handles, two-man rules, and supervisor observations. Properly 

implemented, all of these measures also increase a facility’s safety and reliability.

70 A systematic methodology to evaluate proliferation pathways is provided in “An Evaluation Methodology for Proliferation 

Resistance and Physical Protection of Generation IV Systems,” GIF/PRPPWG/2006/005, 2006. Available at: http://www.gen4.org/Technology/horizontal/PRPPEM.pdf.
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Transportation Subcommittee, it is worth noting here that these concerns also reinforce this 

Subcommittee’s recommendations regarding the desirability of developing multinational or regional fuel 

cycle facilities under strict international safeguards along with the capability to provide spent fuel takeaway for countries with small nuclear energy programs.

The modified open and closed fuel cycle options, because they involve reprocessing, create more 

immediate risks with respect to the potential theft of plutonium-bearing materials. Therefore, these 

options require substantially more intensive human reliability and physical security measures than do 

the open fuel cycle options. Risks are likely to be larger for older fuel cycle facilities than for newer 

facilities because designers can be expected to introduce design features in new facilities (e.g., locating 

nuclear material handling in hot cells) that are intrinsically more robust against acts of theft. At the 

same time, of course, overall risks from all facilities may grow as terrorist threats evolve and capabilities 

increase. In all cases, the transportation of fresh plutonium-bearing fuels must be undertaken with 

effective physical protection; in addition, the collocation of reactors with reprocessing and recycle fuel 

fabrication facilities can reduce transport-related theft risks.

Because the theft of nuclear material or any act of sabotage that leads to a large release of radioactivity 

anywhere in the world could have serious consequences in the United States, the U.S. government has a 

major national security interest in assuring that all nuclear facilities and materials, wherever they may 

be located, have effective physical security measures in place.

Waste Management—Waste disposal is a common requirement for all nuclear fuel cycle strategies. 

No strategy can avoid the need to dispose of some long-lived radioactive materials, whether these 

materials include fission products with residual transuranics or whether they also contain larger 

quantities of actinide elements. All spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste disposal options face the 

same issue: they must demonstrate the requisite long-term isolation of these materials from the active 

environment. It should also be recognized that interim storage provides an effective method for 

substantially reducing heat generation from shorter-lived fission products for all categories of fuel cycles

(fission products typically account for 25 percent of the maximum decay heat in spent nuclear fuel).

Evaluating the waste management implications of different systems requires consideration of three 

issues or metrics: disposal safety/risk, amount of waste, and repository space requirements.

Disposal Safety/Risk—This metric concerns the post-closure safety of waste disposal facilities, especially 

the over the long-term (centuries and beyond). The risk to the public is typically expressed in terms of 

the estimated dose to an individual near the boundary of a disposal site. The dominant component of 

this estimated dose results from radionuclides that are assumed to be more readily dissolved and 

transported to the accessible environment by groundwater. The rate at which various radionuclides are 

dissolved and transported can be very sensitive to the geologic setting both where the waste is initially 

placed and along any potential transport paths that could allow radionuclides to reach the accessible 

environment. Because these factors, and hence any calculation of estimated dose, are extremely sitespecific it is difficult, if not impossible, to generalize about the disposal safety or risks of different 

nuclear energy systems and different radionuclides. That said, energy systems that produce smaller 
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amounts of long-lived waste destined for permanent disposal in a geologic disposal facility, all else

equal, are preferable to energy systems that produce larger amounts of such wastes. Additionally, 

nuclear energy systems that allow wastes destined for a geologic disposal facility to take a form that is 

tailored to the particular disposal setting planned for that waste are preferable to those that do not. 

Two measures of disposal safety and risk are commonly used in assessing the waste impacts of different 

fuel cycle options. One is the long-term toxicity of the waste as measured by the amount of long-lived 

radionuclides sent to a disposal site.71 The second is whether resulting waste forms can be tailored to 

the disposal environment.

In the context of disposal in a deep geologic disposal facility, long-term toxicity depends on the quantity

and composition of long-lived transuranic isotopes present in the waste. This is because all nuclear 

energy systems generate essentially the same amount of fission products for a given amount of energy 

production (although for some disposal settings the risk can be almost independent of the amount of 

transuranic isotopes in the waste). In the case of the once-through nuclear energy systems, all of the 

transuranic isotopes produced in the reactor are sent to the repository and become part of the 

radionuclide inventory that can be released over time. There is no processing of the SNF in this case so 

the waste form is LWR or HTR spent fuel.

In the case of the LWR modified open cycle, there is a reduction in the amount of transuranics being 

sent to the repository because fission reactions in the MOX fuel lead to a net destruction of transuranic 

elements compared to the once-through cycle. For purposes of this comparison, however, the 

reduction is relatively small and unlikely to be important in most disposal settings. Because SNF is being 

reprocessed, 80–90 percent of the repository waste from the LWR modified open cycle can be tailored 

specifically to the repository environment. The remainder of the waste would consist of MOX SNF. 

In a closed cycle system with fast reactors, it is possible to achieve sustained recycle of transuranic

elements to destroy them while also producing power. In this case, the repository waste from each 

recycle would contain a much smaller fraction of transuranics compared to other nuclear energy 

systems: because of process losses during reprocessing and fuel fabrication current technology typically 

leaves 1–2 percent of the transuranic inventory in tailored waste forms for high-level waste, fission 

product wastes, cladding hulls and technology wastes.

72,73. However, closed fuel cycles with fast 

reactors operate with large inventories of transuranics in the reactor cores and (except for fluid-fueled 

reactors) in out-of-reactor fuel cycle facilities. Because the actual rate of destruction of transuranic 

elements tends to be small compared to the total transuranic inventory, decades to centuries can be 

 

71 A performance assessment reflecting the characteristics of the waste and the disposal setting leading to an estimate of dose 

to a member of the public are preferable. Such results are not available for the nuclear energy systems considered here. 72 Technology waste is a term used in France that includes all of the additional wastes generated by a given process (not 

including HLW, fission products, or cladding hulls) - and can include contaminated equipment, protective gear, etc. Technology 

wastes have various contamination levels and therefore require a range of disposal options from repository disposal to near 

surface burial.

73 Technology waste is a term used in France that includes all of the additional wastes generated by a given process (not 

including HLW, fission products, or cladding hulls). This category of waste can include contaminated equipment, protective 

gear, etc. Technology wastes have various contamination levels and therefore require a range of disposal options from 

repository disposal to near surface burial.
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required to significantly reduce the total transuranic inventory, including the fraction that is destined for 

long-term disposal in a repository. This fuel cycle option implies a centuries -long-term commitment to 

the sustained recycling of transuranic elements in fast reactors, or the willingness to abruptly move fast 

reactor fuel to a disposal site if a more rapid transition to a different energy source is desired in the 

future. Over a very long period of time, a closed cycle with fast reactors could operate sustainably with 

substantially lower quantities of long-lived transuranics going to a permanent repository compared to 

the once-through cycle.

A deep geologic repository containing spent fuel or high-level waste is not the only source of long-term 

risk from the nuclear fuel cycle. The front end of the fuel cycle leaves tailings from uranium (or thorium) 

mining and milling and other residues in cases where uranium is recovered using alternative means like 

solution mining.74 The long-term risks associated with wastes from the front end of the fuel cycle result 

from the presence of radium (with a half-life of 1,600 years) and its unrecovered decay products plus 

whatever fraction of the uranium that is not recovered. Tailings from conventional milling operations 

are typically mounded into large piles and covered with a cap composed of impermeable barriers, soil, 

and rock to prevent the release of radon along with any water ingress and radionuclide transport. The 

process of recovering uranium using solution mining leaves non-uranium elements in the ore plus some 

amount of chemicals in the underground ore bed. These chemicals may be left in a condition that is 

more conducive to migration to the accessible environment. The next step of enriching the uranium so 

that it is usable as reactor fuel also produces depleted uranium tails. At present, depleted uranium tails 

are being converted to uranium oxide, which is proposed for near-surface disposal. But no such nearsurface disposal facility has yet been licensed, and questions remain about whether shallow disposal is 

appropriate for large inventories of depleted uranium. 

Available analyses indicate that uranium mining and milling account for about 85 percent of the public 

and occupational risk from nuclear fuel (none of these analyses account for the disposal of depleted 

uranium).75 As noted in the earlier discussion of resource utilization, some fuel cycle options could 

substantially reduce the amount of fresh uranium required to operate future nuclear energy systems, 

with a corresponding reduction in the need for uranium recovery and enrichment operations. This could 

have the effect of reducing certain risks associated with the front end of the fuel cycle. According to 

available studies76, the LWR modified open cycle approach reduces long-term risks from the entire fuel 

cycle by approximately 17 percent compared to the baseline once-through fuel cycle. In the case of a 

closed-cycle fast reactor system, the reduction is on the order of 85 percent. Meanwhile, the long-term 

risks for the HTR nuclear energy system are similar to those of LWRs. Other changes targeted 

specifically to the front end of the fuel cycle could likewise affect overall fuel cycle risks. For example, 

recovering uranium from seawater (although not currently economical) would not produce mill tailings 

and could provide a level of overall risk reduction comparable to that of a closed-cycle fast reactor 

system, depending on the nature and quantity of any secondary wastes that might be generated.

 74 Uranium recovery by in situ leaching leaves a similar amount of naturally occurring radionuclides in the subsurface. Fuel cycle 

risk analyses including this method have not been identified. 75 G. E. Michaels, Impact of Actinide Recycle on Nuclear Fuel Cycle Heath Risks, ORNL/M-1947 (June 1992). OECD Nuclear 

Energy Agency, Radiological Impacts of Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Options: A Comparative Study, (2000). 76 Ibid.
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Volume of Waste. A second waste-related criterion centers on the volume of waste being produced. 

Waste volume is directly related to the cost and occupational risk associated with a number of fuel cycle 

and waste disposal operations (e.g., transportation, waste repackaging, and waste emplacement); waste 

volume (or the number of waste packages) may also affect the engineered barrier system required for a 

specific geologic repository. In considering waste volume it is important to distinguish between the 

types of waste that require deep geologic disposal and the types of waste that can be disposed of on or 

near the surface of the earth. The former category includes SNF, HLW from reprocessing, and GTCC 

wastes from reactors and from reprocessing and recycled fuel fabrication facilities.77 All fuel cycle 

operations and facilities produce additional wastes that have lower hazard and can be disposed of on or 

near the earth’s surface, with the largest contributor coming from uranium recovery operations (in the 

form of mill tailings). Low-level wastes produced by reactors and all fuel cycle facilities amount to less 

than 1 percent of the tailings volume. Depleted uranium from the enrichment of natural and 

reprocessed uranium, which may not be suitable for shallow disposal in large quantities, also amounts 

to less than 1 percent of the tailings volume.

Looking at wastes that require deep geologic disposal, the once-through HTR system generates a 

substantially greater volume of SNF than the once-through LWR system, even though the HTR SNF 

contains a lesser quantity of uranium, transuranics, and fission products. HTR spent fuel is bulkier 

because the graphite moderator is part of the fuel. The LWR modified open cycle generates about the 

same volume of waste requiring repository disposal (HLW+SNF+TU) as the once-through LWR cycle, 

while the closed-cycle fast reactor system generates about 40 percent more waste than the oncethrough LWR system (considering just the waste that would be destined for a repository). This result for 

the closed-cycle fast reactor system reflects two competing effects: On the one hand, this system 

generates a volume of vitrified HLW that is significantly smaller than the volume of SNF generated by a 

once-through system. On the other hand, the reprocessing and recycled fuel fabrication required as 

part of a closed-cycle system produce significant quantities of GTCC wastes (e.g., fuel assembly 

structural metal and cladding, TRU-contaminated equipment and trash). Because fast reactors require a 

high ratio of cladding material to fuel, this results in a net increase in the total volume of waste destined 

for deep geologic disposal.

In terms of the types of waste suitable for near-surface disposal, the LWR modified open cycle and 

closed-cycle fast reactor systems produce volume reductions of 20 percent and more than 95 percent, 

respectively, compared to the once-through LWR system. These reductions are driven by the reduced 

need for fresh uranium, which in turn means a reduction in uranium mill tailings as well as reductions in 

the volume of depleted uranium and low-level waste (LLW) generated by processes at the front end of 

the fuel cycle. In the alternative nuclear energy systems we considered, this reduction in wastes from 

uranium mining dwarfs the additional volume of LLW produced by reprocessing and recycled fuel 

fabrication facilities. The volume of near-surface waste from the HTR system is estimated to be similar 

 

77 Both near-surface and deep geologic disposal options are being considered for GTCC waste as part of a draft environmental 

impact statement being prepared by DOE. This issue likely will not be resolved before the Blue Ribbon Commission finalizes its 

work so we have assumed for purposes of this report that deep geologic disposal or the equivalent will be required for GTCC 

waste.
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to that of LWR systems. Leaving aside mill tailings, the once-through LWR system, the modified open 

cycle LWR system, and the HTR system are all estimated to produce about the same volume of low-level 

waste. In all of these systems, the impacts in terms of wastes suitable for near-surface disposal are 

dominated by the front end of the fuel cycle. The closed-cycle fast reactor system, by contrast, 

generates about 40 percent less LLW (other than mill tailings and depleted uranium) than the oncethrough LWR system because there is much less front-end activity.

One important uncertainty in these results concerns the disposal of depleted uranium tails. There has 

been considerable discussion in the last few years about whether the large amounts of concentrated 

depleted uranium that constitute the tails are acceptable for near-surface disposal. This issue was 

under evaluation by the NRC as this report was being written. If depleted uranium is deemed 

acceptable for near-surface disposal then the conclusions reached in the foregoing paragraphs stand. 

On the other hand, if depleted uranium is found to be not acceptable for near-surface disposal, it would 

require a more isolating disposal technology such as a deep geologic repository. In that case, depleted 

uranium would dominate—on a volume basis—the total inventory of waste destined for deep geologic 

disposal. Depleted uranium would not, however, account for the largest share of radioactivity, decay 

heat, or toxicity in the repository inventory until times approaching a few hundred thousand years.

Repository Space Requirements. In general, the amount of repository space required (i.e., the areal 

extent of the repository) is not driven by the volume of waste to be accommodated. Instead, repository 

space requirements are driven by the amount of decay heat that will be imparted to the surrounding 

geology over time from high-heat wastes such as SNF and vitrified HLW. Over timeframes of less than 

about 70 years after discharge from reactors, SNF decay heat is dominated by the fission products Sr-90 

and Cs-137. Beyond 70 years, decay heat is dominated by TRU elements, especially Am-241 and Pu-238. 

While interim storage for 30 to 90 years can greatly reduce the instantaneous rate of decay heat 

emitted by fission products, it is largely ineffective in reducing the total heat deposited by TRU

elements, which decay over millennia. To accommodate the release of decay heat over time 

(also known as the “integrated decay heat”), wastes must be placed sufficiently far apart so as to 

prevent overheating and avoid harmful effects on the surrounding geology. Repository wastes that 

generate relatively little heat (i.e., most GTCC wastes) can be packed tightly and will therefore account 

for a much smaller fraction of the required repository space. 

If there are no physical limits on the volume of repository space available, the spacing provided between 

packages of heat-generating waste can be increased with trivial cost and effort: in that case, it is simply 

a matter of a little extra mining to acquire the greater spacing. However, if there are constraints on the 

volume of repository space available—whether because of the physical limitations of the site or for 

other reasons—then increased spacing might mean that an additional repository or repositories are 

required. Given that siting and developing these types of facilities is generally costly, contentious, and 

time-consuming, increasing the amount of waste that could fit into an available repository space could 

be an important advantage.
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Disposing of the high-heat wastes from a LWR modified open cycle system has the potential to require 

noticeably less space than disposing of spent nuclear fuel from the once-through LWR system. This

depends upon how rapidly the original LWR spent fuel is reprocessed, where with early reprocessing the 

single pass of recycle fuel through the reactor reduces the quantity of plutonium and plutonium decay 

products (like americium), while reprocessing of older spent fuel provides a much smaller reduction. 

Since these are the elements that account for much of the long-term decay heat of spent fuel, tighter 

spacing may be feasible when the waste from this cycle reaches the repository. By contrast, the 

modified open cycle leaves the quantity of fission products (such as Cs-137 and Sr-90), which dominate 

repository heating in the near term, essentially the same. The once-through HTR system reduces

repository space requirements by about 25 percent. This is because the HTR system has a higher 

thermal efficiency, which means fewer fission reactions are required to produce the same amount of

electricity compared to the once-through LWR system. The closed cycle fast-reactor system reduces 

repository space requirements even more—by as much as 75 percent if a major fraction of the TRU

elements are destroyed by sustained recycle instead of being part of the HLW waste stream that is sent 

for disposal in a repository. If the TRU are destroyed by sustained recycle and if, in addition, cesium and 

strontium are separated during reprocessing so they are not sent to the repository, then the repository 

space requirement decreases by 95–98 percent. In that case, however, an alternative strategy is needed 

for managing the recovered cesium and strontium. This could involve, for example, allowing these 

elements to decay in a storage facility for a few centuries, which itself would raise an entirely new set of 

siting, cost, security, and institutional control issues.

3.5 Summary Comparison

Compared to the once-through LWR system, the modified-open cycle LWR system offers modest 

advantages in terms of increasing uranium resource utilization, yielding a tailored waste form for most 

repository wastes, and reducing repository space and uranium enrichment requirements, with 

attendant benefits in terms of reducing the volume of mill tailings and depleted uranium. These 

advantages come with disadvantages: increased fuel cycle costs, increased physical security costs and 

risks for the protection of separated plutonium and fresh MOX fuels, and increased proliferation risks 

depending on how reprocessing infrastructure is deployed compared to enrichment infrastructure. 

On balance, the Subcommittee sees no compelling reason to encourage industrial-scale deployment of 

this nuclear energy system in the United States at this time.

Compared with either of the LWR systems, the once-through HTR system has the potential to yield some 

compelling advantages: its possible applications could greatly expand the potential to displace fossil 

fuel use in general and petroleum use in particular, which would have significant global climate and 

energy security benefits. The HTR system also produces a significant reduction in repository space 

requirements, and the coated-particle fuels provide a robust waste form. Most disadvantages of this 

system are modest: It is projected to require uranium fuel that is enriched to about twice the level 

typical of once-through LWR fuels, and to date, only one demonstration reactor resembling projected 

future HTR designs has been built and operated, and that reactor proved to be very unreliable. As a 

consequence, a substantial RD&D investment is required to determine whether HTR systems can be
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made sufficiently reliable and, thus, economic so as to justify full-scale deployment, all things 

considered. The Subcommittee recommends that the RD&D program on high-temperature reactors be 

continued. 

As with the once-through HTR nuclear energy system, the closed-cycle fast reactor system has the 

potential to yield a number of different and significant advantages compared to either of the LWR 

systems. For example, a closed-cycle fast-reactor system could potentially yield a large increase in 

uranium resource utilization along with a reduction in enrichment and repository space requirements as 

well as a reduction in the TRU content of repository wastes. On the other hand, the closed-cycle fastreactor nuclear energy system also has potentially significant disadvantages. One is cost: based on 

current technology this system would be expected to have much higher construction costs and lower 

reliability compared to LWRs. A second set of issues concerns the increased physical security costs and 

risks associated with the separation, fabrication, and transport of plutonium and plutonium-bearing 

fuels, and increased proliferation risks. With current technology for pyroprocessing and metal fuels

(the latter technology was developed in the United States for the Integral Fast Reactor project), recycle 

has to occur in heavily shielded facilities but the proposed implementation approach involves batch 

processing and multiple decentralized reprocessing facilities. Thus, the implications for security and 

safeguards are not yet clear. As with the HTR system, the closed-cycle fast reactor will require 

substantial RD&D to determine whether it can become sufficiently reliable and whether reactor 

construction costs can be reduced so that commercial deployment can be justified. The Subcommittee

recommends that RD&D on closed-cycle nuclear energy systems be continued.

Based on the attributes of HTR and closed-cycle, fast-spectrum systems listed in Table 5, one could 

conclude that hybrid alternatives might be attractive. For example, molten salt reactors do not use 

metal cladding or structures in their reactor cores, and thus can operate at the same temperatures as 

HTRs. Fluid fuels eliminate the need to fabricate fuel assemblies from recycled material and can use 

relatively simple chemical separations processes that maintain high radiation levels and self-protection. 

The radioactivity and inaccessibility of these streams should partly ameliorate proliferation and 

terrorism concerns, although methods for applying IAEA safeguards would need to be developed. 

A prototype molten salt nuclear reactor (the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment) operated in the U.S. from 

1965 to 1969 and at one point the U.S. had a program to develop a full-scale reactor. Substantial 

interest in this technology—the most common variant is called the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor—

has reemerged because of the potential to operate at high temperatures with thorium fuel. However, 

as might be evident from this discussion, the fluid fuel system described here is not as well developed as 

the HTR and closed-cycle fast reactor systems discussed above, and a major RD&D program would be 

required to develop this option further. The Subcommittee recommends that DOE perform a detailed 

technology assessment to determine the status of fluid fuel technology against the criteria discussed 

in this section as a basis for deciding whether it should be pursued further.

As noted earlier, there are many other alternative nuclear energy systems that might be considered. 

Below we briefly characterize some of these alternatives and discuss how they might fit into the rubric 

of considerations shown in the table.
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• Thorium-based fuels in once-through cycles:

− Offer additional resource benefits (in terms of fuel diversity) but most other benefits and 

issues are essentially the same as for the once-through uranium-based alternative. 

Thorium is likely to be more robust in reactor accident situations because its melting 

point is approximately 550°C higher than uranium dioxide.

− Contain fewer transuranic (TRU) elements in the used/spent fuel but this does not mean 

that the radiotoxicity of thorium-based spent nuclear fuel is lower than that of uraniumbased fuel. Long-term repository risks for thorium-based fuels have not been studied 

enough to allow for a defensible comparison with repository risks for uranium-based 

fuels.

• Alternatives that involve a symbiotic once-through cycle from which TRU elements are 

recovered and used in a closed fuel cycle based on uranium or thorium fuel:

− If a decision is ultimately made to deploy fast-spectrum uranium reactors or thermalspectrum thorium reactors with a closed fuel cycle—presumably because these options 

are determined to be preferable to a once-through fuel cycle—the optimal combination 

of reactor types will be determined by reference to multiple evaluation criteria such as 

those listed at the outset of this section.

− If fast reactors operating on a closed fuel cycle prove preferable to a once-through fuel 

cycle, a symbiotic system composed of once-through reactors and fast reactors operating 

on a closed fuel cycle could be used to transition to reliance on fast reactors.

• Small modular reactors:

− Refers to a strategy to change the approach to manufacturing, financing, and deploying 

reactors, rather than to a distinct nuclear energy system or technology. The question is 

whether modular designs can offer advantages in terms of cost and safety.

− All of the reactor alternatives shown in Table 5 (including the baseline system used in this 

comparison), as well as variants of these alternatives, could theoretically be implemented 

using “small” designs and most are being considered. Small designs do not fundamentally 

change the waste management issues associated with the reactor type in question.

• Minimized process nuclear energy system:

− Based on CANDU reactors (or possibly innovative graphite-based reactors) fueled with 

natural (as opposed to enriched) uranium. This technology eliminates the need for 

uranium enrichment and does not produce depleted uranium. Uranium could be 

obtained from seawater to eliminate both mill tailings on the surface and subsurface 

contamination from in situ recovery. Waste management (at least for SNF) could involve 

permanent deep borehole or sub-seabed disposal, to provide high irretrievability to 

prevent future recovery and reprocessing.
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− This fuel cycle option raises a different mix of issues than those summarized in Table 5. 

It is largely based on current technology and would appear to offer environmental and 

proliferation advantages. However, there are unknowns concerning the economics of 

recovering uranium from seawater, possible challenges in handling the resulting waste 

streams, and the technology and legal issues associated with disposal (including the 

feasibility of subseabed disposal).

The fact that there are no clear winners among the advanced fuel cycle concepts currently under 

consideration suggests a policy to keep multiple options open. That said, certain fuel cycle strategies

and technologies are clearly better developed than others—research in some areas has been underway 

for decades and it is possible that more mature technologies could be implemented more quickly, 

perhaps within a few decades. Other concepts are barely at the proof-of-principle stage and would 

require substantial investments of time and funding (and in some cases, a number of revolutionary 

technical developments) to bring them to a level of maturity sufficient to evaluate their suitability for 

further development and potential implementation. Consequently, the level and duration of R&D effort 

needed to advance these concepts varies widely. Ironically, funding needs for technologies that are 

relatively more developed can be greater than for technologies still in an earlier phase of the RD&D 

process—particularly in the case of technologies that are ready to be demonstrated. At that point, large 

investments may be needed to provide the demonstration facilities required to make further progress. 

In the next section, we survey the U.S. government’s nuclear energy R&D plans and programs and offer 

suggestions for addressing the challenges facing those programs.

3.6 Key Findings

(1) Advances in nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies may hold promise for achieving 

substantial benefits in terms of broadly held safety, economic, environmental, and energy 

security goals, but continued RD&D will be required. Subcommittee members hold different 

views about the commercial promise of technologies for closing the fuel cycle and about the 

strength of the rationales often cited in arguments for (or against) moving away from the oncethrough fuel cycle as currently employed in the United States.

(2) No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technologies—including 

current or potential reprocess and recycle technologies—have the potential to fundamentally 

alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several 

decades, if not longer. The fundamental challenges we face are twofold: how to successfully 

site and license a deep geologic disposal facility or equivalent, and how to safely and efficiently 

manage the increasing inventory of spent LWR fuel—or the HLW from reprocessing it—for the 

potentially long time period(s) required to open one or more geologic disposal facilities. No 

technology has been identified that can eliminate these challenges. 

Regarding the first challenge, all reactors produce spent fuel or waste that is highly radioactive 

and contains significant concentrations of long-lived radionuclides, such as the actinides, to the 

point that deep geologic disposal is required to protect human health and the environment. 

The HLW and GTCC wastes that arise from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel require the same 

management because they contain essentially all of the fission products and a significant 

fraction of the long-lived actinides in the spent fuel. Enhanced reprocessing to recover the long-
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lived radionuclides and then destroy them by neutron irradiation can, in theory, substantially 

reduce the amount of such radionuclides going to a repository. However, several constraints 

would apply. First, in any credible enhanced reprocessing system, a sufficient amount of

radionuclides would be lost to waste streams so that a repository would still be required. 

Second, not all long-lived radionuclides are amenable to destruction due to small cross sections 

or dilution by other isotopes. Third, the recovered radionuclides from each generation of spent 

fuel must be recovered and recycled for at least a century or two so that the amount of longlived radionuclides in the fuel cycle is negligible compared to the amount of long-lived 

radionuclides in reprocessing wastes already sent for disposal.

The volume of material associated with the second challenge is not trivial: nearly 70,000 MT of 

spent fuel exists, 2,000 MT or more are being produced each year (some of it has been in 

storage for decades), and it will likely be several decades before one or more repositories can be 

established and before disposal efforts can catch up with the backlog. As described in the 

previous paragraph, reprocessing simply results in having to store high-level and other longlived wastes for the same amount of time. Thus, the need to develop safe and efficient storage 

capabilities for SNF or HLW until geologic disposal is available remains as a challenge.

(3) Alternatives to the once-through fuel cycle (as practiced in the United States, Sweden, Canada 

and elsewhere) or to the modified open fuel cycle (as practiced in France, Japan, and Russia and 

planned in some other countries) will require decades of RD&D before they are ready for 

widespread commercial application.

(4) The Subcommittee notes that while there are no fundamental conflicts between the advanced 

nuclear energy technologies currently under development and existing law, an array of issues 

needs to be addressed so that these systems can be defensibly evaluated against applicable 

criteria. As a consequence, it would be premature at this point for the United States to commit 

irreversibly to any particular fuel cycle as a matter of government policy. Instead, the United 

States should strive to keep its technical options open until sufficient information is available to 

make a defensible decision. If and when future technology advances change the balance of 

market and policy considerations to favor a shift away from the once-through fuel cycle, that 

shift should be driven by a combination of factors, including safety, economics, energy security, 

waste management impacts, and other considerations. Selection of technologies should be 

based on meeting regulatory and policy requirements for safety, environmental protection,

security, and nonproliferation, while meeting commercial criteria for economic competitiveness 

with other energy technologies.

(5) In sum, the Subcommittee finds it is both more important and more productive at this time to 

focus on designing and implementing a nuclear research, development, and demonstration 

(RD&D) strategy for the next several decades that makes effective use of scarce resources and is 

continuously responsive to the broader policy objectives about which we already have broad 

agreement (as opposed to seeking consensus on the merits of particular technology and fuel 

cycle pathways).
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4. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

4.1 Background

The nuclear technologies in worldwide use today evolved from innovative work done by the United 

States and as a result of a set of policies that have promoted their development. Since the earliest days 

of the civilian nuclear power industry in the United States, the federal government has played a large 

role. It undertook or sponsored the early research, development, and demonstration of nuclear 

technologies in the 1950s and early 1960s—initially for defense purposes, primarily in support of nuclear 

weapons and naval nuclear reactor development, but soon for civilian power applications. Early 

demonstrations of the commercial potential of nuclear energy generation through the Power Reactor 

Demonstration Program, such as the Shippingport reactor project, were conducted as public-private 

partnerships. Government involvement continued after the technology for civilian nuclear power 

production was transferred to the private sector. Throughout subsequent decades the federal 

government has funded nuclear energy RD&D and adopted policies, such as the accident liability and 

insurance framework established under the Price-Anderson Act and the ALWR Program and DOE 2010 

Program, to support the demonstration and deployment of new generations of reactor designs. A short 

history of reactor and fuel cycle technology development, including a discussion of the federal role, may

be found in the commissioned paper Abridged History of Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technologies 

Development on the Commission web site (www.brc.gov).78

Many U.S. government policies supporting commercial demonstration of new reactor technologies have 

aimed to reduce first-mover costs and risk, for example through loan guarantees and federal cost 

sharing for reactor design and licensing. Federal cost sharing with U.S. reactor vendors under the ALWR 

Program for NRC Design Certification of new passively-safe LWRs (i.e., the AP-600), and in the 

development of three NRC Early Site Licenses by utilities under the DOE 2010 Program, arguably has 

played a central role in enabling commercial entities to begin building new ALWRs in the United States. 

Following the events in Fukushima, it is likely that these passive safety technologies, which were

pioneered in the U.S., will become the leading technologies for decades to come.

The opportunity to secure federal loan guarantees for new reactor construction has further increased 

the likelihood that new modular construction methods can be tested and new reactor designs built 

(although only one nuclear loan guarantee has been completed in the 6 years since the program was 

passed by Congress). Funding for many of these supportive government policies has been provided 

through DOE’s nuclear energy program budget.

New nuclear energy technologies that could achieve significant performance improvements over 

existing technologies must emerge from R&D. This section begins by summarizing DOE’s longer-term, 

high-level objectives for commercial nuclear energy R&D based on a roadmap submitted to Congress in 

2010. Later sections describe DOE’s nuclear energy R&D program plans for FY 2011 and FY 2012, discuss

 

78 Abridged History of Reactor and Fuel Cycle Technologies Development: A White Paper for the Reactor and Fuel Cycle 

Technology Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission, Gary Vine, Longenecker & Associates, March 15, 2011.
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R&D infrastructure issues and needs, and review efforts within the NRC to perform anticipatory research

and develop new regulatory frameworks for commercial development, licensing, and deployment of 

advanced nuclear energy systems. We conclude this section with a discussion of challenges facing the 

U.S. nuclear energy R&D program and recommendations for addressing those challenges. The 

Subcommittee believes that a well-focused RD&D program is critical to enabling the United States to 

regain its role as the global leader of nuclear technology innovation. 

4.2 The DOE Nuclear R&D Roadmap, Nuclear Programs, and RD&D Budget

In April 2010, DOE submitted a report to Congress titled Nuclear Energy Research and Development 

Roadmap. The roadmap lays out, in mostly high-level and qualitative terms, plans and objectives for the 

Department’s R&D activities related to civilian nuclear energy strategies, technologies, and systems. 

The roadmap articulates four overarching R&D objectives for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy over the 

next four decades, as summarized below.

R&D OBJECTIVE 1: Improve safety and reliability and extend lives of current reactors: DOE aims to 

work with industry and the NRC to safely extend the operating lifetimes of current plants beyond 

60 years and, where possible, make further improvements in their productivity. The DOE role in this 

R&D objective is to conduct the long-term research needed to inform major component refurbishment 

and replacement strategies, performance enhancements, plant license extensions, and age-related 

regulatory oversight decisions. DOE will focus on aging phenomena and issues that are generic to 

reactor type and develop advanced monitoring technologies and safety assessment techniques, among 

other activities.

R&D OBJECTIVE 2: Improve the affordability of new reactors: New reactor designs, such as small 

modular reactors (SMRs) and high-temperature reactors (HTRs) may offer improved safety and 

economics and other desirable characteristics. To pursue these opportunities, DOE intends to develop 

advanced reactor concepts, technologies and tools for high-performance plants; support R&D on small 

modular reactor concepts, including sponsoring cost-shared research related to design certification; and 

design and develop safety methods for high-temperature reactors using graphite-based fuels.

R&D OBJECTIVE 3: Develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles: Specifically, DOE will investigate technical 

challenges associated with three potential fuel cycle strategies, including a “once through” fuel cycle, a 

“modified open” cycle, and “full recycling” (as defined in previous sections). 

For the once-through fuel cycle, DOE plans to develop fuels that would increase the efficient use of 

uranium resources and reduce the amount of spent fuel generated for each megawatt-hour (MWh) of 

electricity produced—essentially by increasing the burn up of once-through fuels. This would include 

evaluating the use of non-uranium materials (e.g., thorium) as reactor fuel options. 

In the category of modified open fuel cycles, DOE aims to investigate fuel forms and reactor designs that 

would improve resource utilization and reduce the quantity of long-lived radiotoxic elements left in the 
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spent fuel to be disposed of. This would be accomplished using simplified separation techniques that 

are claimed to have proliferation risks lower than full spent fuel recycle. 

For full recycling, the goal is to claim a higher fraction of the energy potential of the original uranium 

while recycling or destroying most of the long-lived actinide elements such that the long-term toxicity 

of, and heat released by, the resulting waste streams is dramatically reduced. The challenge is to 

develop techniques that can achieve this objective in an operationally and environmentally safe,

cost-effective and proliferation-resistant manner.

Prior to beginning major R&D work on these three fuel-cycle options, DOE intends to analyze a number 

of related issues, including the availability of fuel resources for different fuel cycle and reactor 

deployment scenarios; options for the disposition of waste streams from existing and future fuel cycles; 

options for reducing the presence of long-lived actinides in spent fuel; the feasibility and risks of 

alternative recycling processes; the behavior of different waste forms over time in different storage and 

disposal environments; fuel fabrication processes and fuel performance; options for the re-use of 

recovered uranium and other fuel constituents (i.e., metal cladding); and transmutation systems that 

can alter spent fuel elements such that they have more desirable disposal characteristics (e.g., shorter 

half-lives). 

R&D OBJECTIVE 4: Understand and minimize the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism: DOE plans 

to pursue an approach that integrates technology development (including safeguards and security 

technologies and systems) with the maintenance and strengthening of nonproliferation frameworks and 

protocols. This approach recognizes that technological advances can only provide part of an effective 

response to proliferation risks: institutional measures—such as export controls, management systems 

and safeguards—are also essential. More specifically, DOE plans to (1) assess proliferation risks to 

inform future fuel cycle and technology decisions and (2) develop and test technologies designed to 

reduce proliferation risks.

Cross-Cutting R&D: DOE’s 2010 roadmap also calls for ongoing R&D in a number of enabling, crosscutting technology areas: 

• Structural materials,

• Nuclear fuels,

• Reactor systems,

• Instrumentation and controls,

• Power conversion systems,

• Process heat transport systems,

• Dry heat rejection,
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• Separations processes,

• Waste forms,

• Risk assessment methods, and

• Computational modeling and simulation.

As this summary reveals, DOE’s current nuclear energy R&D roadmap provides for both relatively shortterm activities to support the safety and reliability of operating reactors and renewed construction of 

LWRs, and typically longer-term activities to develop advanced reactors and fuel cycle technologies. 

And as noted at the outset, the roadmap is generally qualitative and written at a high level, without 

much program, technical, or quantitative budget detail. Approximate milestones for the R&D objectives 

are shown for only the minority of activities expected to be completed before 2020. The roadmap does 

not contain timelines for activities expected to be completed beyond 2020.

As R&D activities continue, DOE anticipates reaching decision points at which fuel cycle strategies 

(e.g., once-through, full recycle, etc.) and technologies (e.g., oxide fuel vs. metal fuel, water vs. sodiumcooled reactor designs) will be evaluated and subsequently selected. Properly-conducted evaluations—

provided they are transparent, unbiased, and account for the interconnections among the various 

elements of the nuclear fuel cycle—will allow resources to be focused on the most promising systems, 

especially when it comes to more costly, large-scale development and demonstration projects. A major 

question for new nuclear energy technologies is when to take the step from R&D to commercial-scale 

demonstration. As discussed further below, the Subcommittee notes that at the stage of commercialscale demonstration, federal cost sharing of development costs with industry can assure that the 

technology has actual commercial potential—as evidenced by private-sector willingness to invest—while 

still addressing the issues associated with first-mover risk that can otherwise prevent sufficient 

investment in new technologies. For example, current industry willingness to invest substantial financial 

resources in the development of small, modular reactors based on LWR technology suggests that 

industry believes these reactors have commercial potential. As R&D brings additional nuclear energy 

technologies to the stage where commercial-scale demonstration may be warranted, federal cost 

sharing of development costs will remain the most appropriate approach to incentivize their 

commercial-scale demonstration.

DOE’s nuclear energy R&D roadmap is intended to serve as a guide for the development of annual R&D 

program and budget proposals to Congress. As discussed below, nuclear energy R&D supported by DOE 

ranges from basic research on “enabling technologies” to applied research and engineering 

development directed at existing reactors and potential new construction.

In examining DOE’s nuclear energy R&D plans and programs, the Subcommittee remained mindful of 

the broader context for our nation’s energy research, development and demonstration efforts. A 

number of studies have concluded that the United States suffers from a pervasive deficit of public and 

private investment in energy technology innovation given the importance of energy technologies to the 

economy, to our industrial competitiveness and energy security, and to the protection of human welfare 
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and the environment.79 For example, PCAST80 points out that public investment in energy R&D in the 

United States, at around 0.03 percent of GDP, lags behind that of Japan, Korea, France, and China.

The case for direct public investment in basic science R&D is well documented in the mainstream 

economics literature, which points to the inability of the funder to capture the commercial benefits of 

an investment in basic science as the primary reason why private investments in R&D would be 

expected to systematically fall short of socially optimal levels.81 Influential reports such as the National 

Academies’ Rising Above the Gathering Storm82 have made the case for increased federal investment in 

basic science and have prompted actions such as the formation of the Advanced Research Projects 

Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program within DOE to provide increased support for longer-range basic energy 

research investments.

The theoretical case for a direct government role (and arguably the effectiveness of many government 

interventions) diminishes as technologies move from basic research through the intermediary stages of 

development and demonstration to full-scale commercial deployment. Indeed, efforts to place 

government in a supportive role in these latter stages of technology development are regularly cast by 

critics as “corporate welfare.” Even in these later stages of the innovation process, however, supportive 

policies and first-mover financial incentives are often required to overcome remaining deployment 

barriers.83 For example, the annual rate of installation of new wind power in the U.S. fluctuated wildly 

over the past decade depending on the status of federal tax credits for renewable energy generation.84 

Looking specifically at incentives for nuclear technology, U.S. technical leadership in nuclear energy—

while not as strong as it once was—has long been bolstered by federal support. Federal support played 

a role in the development of the state-of-the-art AP-1000 and ESBWR reactor designs and in plans to 

 79 1) 2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast, Battelle, 2010, http://www.battelle.org/aboutus/rd/2011.pdf.

2) Advanced Energy Technologies: Budget Trends and Challenges for DOE’s Energy R&D Program, GAO, 2008, 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08556t.pdf.

3) Department of Energy: Key Challenges Remain for Developing and Deploying Advanced Energy Technologies to Meet Future 

Needs, GAO, 2006, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07106.pdf.

4) Robert Margolis and Daniel Kammen, “Evidence of under-investment in energy R&D in the United States and the impact of 

Federal policy,” Energy Policy 27 (1999) 575-584, http://kammen.berkeley.edu//margoliskammenEpolicy.pdf.

5) “U.S. Energy Research and Development: Declining Investment, Increasing Need, and the Feasibility of Expansion, 2007,”

Energy Policy 35(1): 746-755.

6) G.F. Nemet and D. M. Kammen, Report to the President on Federal Energy Research and Development for the Challenges of 

the Twenty-First Century, 2007, PCAST, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-nov2007.pdf. 

7) Report to the President on Acceleration the Pace of Change in Energy Technologies Through an Integrated Federal Energy 

Policy, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), November 2010, 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-energy-tech-report.pdf. 80 Ibid. 81 The basic argument is that private investors face a free-rider problem: they cannot appropriate or capture the full value of all 

the knowledge “spillovers” created by their investments in R&D. So their incentives to make these investments are diminished

relative to the full social benefits they generate. This gap provides the justification for direct public investment in basic science 

R&D.

82 National Research Council, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic 

Future, National Academies Press, 2007. 83 Under Section 218 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, for example, the federal government successfully provided cost-sharing 

for the demonstration and first licensed deployment of at-reactor modular dry storage technologies. 84 M. Ragheb, USA Wind Energy Resources, 1/27/2010, 

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mragheb/www/NPRE%20475%20Wind%20Power%20Systems/USA%20Wind%20Energy%20Resources

.pdf.
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construct new reactors in the United States, which arguably would not have advanced without the 

prospect of federal loan guarantees (although, as noted earlier, agreement on only one guarantee has 

been achieved in the six years since the program was passed by Congress).

While government support for energy technologies can take many forms, this section focuses 

specifically on support provided via DOE’s nuclear energy R&D programs. Support for nuclear energy 

RD&D has grown considerably over the past decade and, as shown in figure 12, seems to have reached a 

relatively steady (but not necessarily optimal) level in recent years.

Figure 12. DOE R&D Funding Levels Fiscal Year 1992 - 201185

The information presented below is based on budget documents prepared by DOE. These documents 

are generally longer and more detailed than the high-level roadmap discussed in the previous section. 

However, they provide only a one- or two-year snapshot of DOE’s plans and activities. Table 6 provides 

a breakdown of FY 2010 funding for DOE’s major nuclear RD&D programs compared to the 

Department’s FY 2012 budget request. More details on the Department’s nuclear energy R&D programs 

may be found at www.ne.doe.gov.

The remainder of this section discusses current and planned activities under each of the programs 

funded in FY 2010 and proposed to be funded in the FY 2012 budget request. 

 

85 Testimony of DOE Asst. Secretary Pete Miller to the BRC. July 2010, Idaho Falls, ID.
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Table 6. FY 2010 Budget and FY 2012 Budget Request for the DOE Nuclear RD&D Program86

Technical Areas

FY 2010 Current FY 2012 Request

(in $1,000s)

LWR SMR Licensing Technical Support -- 67,000

Reactor Concepts RD&D -- 125,000

Fuel Cycle Research and Development 131,938 155,010

Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies -- 97,364

Integrated University Program 5,000 0

International Nuclear Energy Cooperation 0 3,000

TOTAL 451,80287 380,37488

LWR SMR Licensing Technical Support: DOE has proposed to split this new program from the Reactor 

Concepts R&D effort and to manage it as a stand-alone program starting in FY 2012. The purpose is to 

support first-of-a-kind engineering and design certification activities for small modular water-cooled 

reactor designs through cost-shared arrangements with industry partners in order to accelerate 

deployment.

Reactor Concepts RD&D: This program aims to develop new and advanced reactor designs and 

technologies. Specific areas of R&D (there are no demonstration activities planned in the immediate 

future) are designed to address technical, cost, safety, and security issues associated with new reactor 

concepts. Individual projects within this program include small modular (non-light water-cooled) reactors 

advanced concepts R&D, the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) demonstration project, and other 

advanced reactor concepts. In cooperation with EPRI, the program will also develop advanced 

technologies for extending the life of existing LWRs under the Light Water Reactor Sustainability program.

The largest share of the FY 2012 budget request for reactor concepts (about 40 percent) is for the Next 

Generation Nuclear Plant Demonstration Project (NGNP), which aims to demonstrate electricity and/or 

hydrogen production with a high-temperature nuclear energy source.

Fuel Cycle R&D: The mission of this program is to develop nuclear fuel and waste management 

technologies. Beginning in FY 2010, the focus of the program shifted from near-term technology 

development and deployment to long-term, science-based RD&D with the aim of improving current fuel 

cycle technologies and management strategies. Current plans call for the examination of three fuel 

cycle approaches: the current once-through fuel cycle, modified open fuel cycles, and full fuel recycle. 

 86 At the time of writing of this document, the FY 2011 numbers were unavailable due to continued DOE operation under a 

continuing budget resolution.

87 The R&D total includes programs that were changed or terminated such as Generation IV nuclear energy systems and Nuclear 

Power 2010.

88 The FY 2012 R&D total does not include the LWR SMR licensing technical support program as DOE budget documents do not 

include this in the R&D portion of their budget. See U.S. DOE FY12 Statistical Table by Appropriation 

www.cfo.doe.gov/budget/12budget/Content/Appcon.pdf.
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The current Fuel Cycle R&D program has dropped its earlier emphasis under the Global Nuclear Energy 

Partnership (GNEP) on constructing commercial-scale facilities and instead is now focused on RD&D with 

a new goal of deploying alternate fuel cycles in 2050. Several considerations have driven this change. 

One is the assumption that spent fuel from nuclear power reactors can be safely stored on an interim 

basis for at least 60 years. A second is that the expanded time allocated for RD&D will lead to new 

“science-based” and “transformational” fuel cycle technologies that will be superior to the more 

evolutionary technologies that would have been introduced earlier in the GNEP program.

This program is also undertaking the search for a more proliferation-resistant reprocessing technology 

than the PUREX process. Criteria for success include high throughputs, high product purity with minimal 

waste streams, very high decontamination of the transuranic product from lanthanide fission products, 

acceptable economics, and nonproliferation assurance (specifically, the process should not produce a 

separated stream of pure plutonium). Two forms of advanced separations processes for LWR and fast 

reactor fuels are being pursued: 

• Advanced aqueous processing: These are a suite of aqueous solvent extraction processes for 

LWR spent fuel. Advanced aqueous processes that meet the above criteria all involve an initial 

extraction segment named “UREX,” (for Uranium EXtraction) that separates uranium and 

technetium from the spent fuel dissolver solution. Other extraction segments have been added 

to meet various requirements for an advanced process, all called UREX+ (UREX+1, UREX+1a, 

UREX+1b, UREX+2, etc. – about 10 variations are being investigated).

• Pyro-chemical processing (or “pyroprocessing”): This process is applicable to metallic fast 

reactor fuels. It is based on molten salt electro-refining, a technique that has been used since 

1996 for conditioning metallic spent fuel from the EBR-II reactor for disposal.

Both technologies face major challenges in meeting the stated goals. Scale-up to commercial 

throughputs, economics, and waste stream management are all particularly challenging.

Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies: The Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies Program collects 

activities that had been scattered under other programs in previous fiscal years. The focus is on 

innovative research in areas that are relevant to multiple reactor and fuel cycle concepts and that offer 

the promise of dramatically improved performance. 

Together, these activities are intended to address crosscutting technology needs (such as advanced fuels 

and reactor materials, innovative manufacturing methods, sensor technologies, etc.), while also 

encouraging transformative, “outside the box” technological advances. To foster the latter, DOE is 

proposing to provide funding for investigator-initiated projects—to be selected via an open competitive 

solicitation—and for continued support of a modeling and simulation hub established in FY 2010.

Integrated University Program: The aim of this program was to train thousands of young energy 

scientists and engineers across the United States by providing support to nuclear engineering and 

science programs at U.S. universities. DOE has requested zero funding for this program in FY 2012, but 

will continue to provide up to 20 percent of appropriated nuclear energy R&D funds from other 

programs to competitively-awarded university-based research.
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International Nuclear Energy Cooperation: This program is intended to support the implementation of 

international cooperative RD&D activities that further the Office of Nuclear Energy’s mission. Like the 

Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies program, this program collects activities that had been scattered 

under other program headings in previous fiscal years.

4.3 Industry-funded Nuclear Energy R&D

Nuclear reactor vendors, nuclear power plant operators and others finance the conduct of research 

focused primarily on constructing new nuclear power plants (including small modular reactors) or on 

maximizing the output or improving the safety and reliability of existing nuclear power plants.

Work on specific new reactor designs is supported by nuclear power plant vendors, often in cooperation 

with the federal government (i.e., through the now-defunct ALWR and Nuclear Power 2010 programs). 

These cooperative efforts have led to the commercial availability of currently state-of-the-art reactor 

designs like the AP-1000 and the ESBWR. Public-private partnerships have also been used to develop 

alternatives to LWR technology, including the sodium-cooled PRISM reactor and the gas-cooled reactor 

concepts studied as part of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant project; such partnerships should 

continue to play a major role in the future.

Industry and the federal government have also jointly-funded research or otherwise worked 

cooperatively to maximize the output or improve the safety and reliability of today’s nuclear power 

plants. Much of the industry-sponsored effort is conducted through the Electric Power Research 

Institute (EPRI), a research and development organization funded primarily by electric generating 

companies. For example, production of nuclear electricity from existing plants grew substantially in the 

1990s and 2000s as a result of increased plant availability.89 This improvement was driven by reactor 

operators and EPRI, and spurred by DOE-sponsored R&D into high-burn up fuels that allowed utilities to 

shift from 12-month operating cycles to 18- or 24-month operating cycles, thereby reducing plant

downtimes.

90 EPRI and DOE are currently working together on EPRI’s Long-Term Operations Program 

and DOE’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program to identify, evaluate, and potentially address 

technology challenges for extending the life of existing LWRs. In addition, nuclear plant operators 

provide financial support for so-called “owners groups,” which, among other things, support R&D into 

issues common to particular reactor designs. EPRI’s 2011 budget for nuclear energy R&D is 

approximately $144 million. 

4.4 NRC R&D and Advanced Technology Licensing Efforts

The NRC is engaged in research efforts to assure the safety of nuclear facilities during construction, 

operations and maintenance; in addition, the NRC conducts research to support its regulatory functions. 

These activities build the NRC’s capability to perform independent confirmatory scientific and technical 

 

89 The fleet’s average capacity factor improved from 58.6% in 1974-76 to 90.24% in the 2007-09 period. Blake, E. Michael, 

“Capacity factor remains over 90%”, Nuclear News, May 2010, pp. 39-43. 90 Nuclear Energy R&D Roadmap, Report to Congress, April 2010, p. 8.
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analysis for new regulations, license applications and amendments, and are thus vital to strengthening 

the NRC’s role as an independent regulatory authority for the safety and security of U.S. nuclear energy 

infrastructure. Earlier NRC research, for example to develop the Code Scaling, Applicability, and 

Uncertainty Analysis methodology, played a fundamental role in creating the regulatory framework that 

enabled U.S. reactor vendors to develop and license designs for ALWRs with new passive safety systems. 

This is why the Subcommittee is recommending that 5 to 10 percent of federal nuclear energy R&D 

funding be provided directly to the NRC to fund an independent program of anticipatory research and 

efforts to develop licensing frameworks for advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies. NRC Design 

Certification remains the international “gold standard” for reactor safety, and continuing investment in 

NRC research to maintain this leadership provides one of the best opportunities for promoting the 

widespread adoption of U.S. standards for safety and security within the international community.

The NRC Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research is a major NRC program office with an annual budget of 

approximately $65 million.

91 Principal areas of research include nuclear materials, new and advanced 

reactor infrastructure development, safety and severe accident analysis, risk analysis, human factors and 

reliability, and environmental and health effects. Most of this research is funded from fees charged to 

U.S. utilities and is focused on assuring the safety of NRC-licensed facilities, but the NRC is also engaged 

in research to prepare for the possible commercial use of new reactor and fuel cycle systems.

While DOE and the nuclear industry will need to conduct most of the research undertaken in support of 

new nuclear technology, the NRC has an important role in working with DOE and the industry to identify

the most probable future technologies and to develop appropriate regulatory frameworks. To that end,

the NRC issued NUREG-1860, the “Feasibility Study for a Risk-Informed and Performance-Based 

Regulatory Structure for Future Plant Licensing” in December 2007. NUREG-1860 uses a probabilistic 

(risk-informed) approach in the identification and selection of licensing basis events. The NRC 

Commissioners have directed NRC staff to pilot the technology-neutral framework from NUREG-1860 in 

parallel with the licensing strategy for the NGNP. Support for the NRC’s efforts to pilot the NUREG-1860 

framework on the NGNP program has been provided under a reimbursable work contract with the DOE.

The NRC is also working on changes to its current regulatory framework to prepare for the potential use 

of reprocessing technologies. Given the relative lack of interest over the past few decades in the 

commercial deployment of reprocessing technologies in the U.S., the current NRC licensing 

requirements (in 10 CFR 50) have evolved to focus mainly on reactors. The NRC is now planning to 

revise the regulatory framework for licensing potential new commercial reprocessing facilities. 

The NRC’s current schedule calls for completing the regulatory basis and initial environmental activities

in 2011 and 2012, to culminate in a request to the NRC Commissioners to proceed with rulemaking. 

If that request is approved, the NRC plans to issue a draft rule in 2014 and a final rule in 2015, although 

these dates could slip a year or two depending on available funding.

 

91 Brian Sheron, Director NRC Office of Regulatory Research - testimony to the BRC, August 31, 2010.
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4.5 R&D Infrastructure in the United States—Existing Capacity and Future Needs

The U.S. government currently maintains a wide range of facilities to support its nuclear energy RD&D 

activities. These facilities include test reactors, large-scale hot cells, smaller-scale radiological facilities, 

specialty engineering facilities, and small non-radiological laboratories. Available capabilities include 

core competencies in reactor technologies, fuel cycle development, and systems engineering as well as 

the safeguards, security, and safety infrastructure to manage radiological and nuclear materials and 

testing under normal and abnormal conditions. Specific facilities include those for neutron irradiation, 

post-irradiation examination (PIE) and characterization, fuel development, separations and waste form 

development, and other specialized testing capabilities.

Most of this infrastructure is DOE-owned and much of it resides in the national laboratory system, 

though it is supplemented by university and some industry capabilities ranging from research reactors to 

materials science and testing laboratories. In addition, important sources of R&D support and expertise 

are housed in the nuclear engineering and radiation science programs of colleges and universities, and 

in corporations that are involved in developing, designing, manufacturing, and building nuclear power 

plants and other nuclear facilities. Additional capabilities specific to the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion 

Program reside within the Department of Defense.

The remainder of this section focuses on the infrastructure, equipment, capabilities and assets needed 

to advance state-of-the-art nuclear energy technology RD&D. It draws heavily on a summary of several 

recent studies of this issue,

92 including studies commissioned by DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and 

undertaken by Battelle Memorial Institute and INL. We do not include the manufacturing, waste 

management, cleanup or other facilities and capabilities that must be in place to support the RD&D 

enterprise. Nor do we cover the nation’s nuclear weapons-related RD&D infrastructure, though it 

should be noted that some of this infrastructure—which is based almost entirely at the national 

laboratories—could be useful for some research activities related to advanced fuel cycle security and 

nonproliferation. 

Maintaining the physical infrastructure needed to conduct nuclear energy RD&D tends to be significantly 

more costly than maintaining other types of RD&D infrastructure—in part because of the safety and 

security precautions involved in handling nuclear materials, and in part due to the age of the 

infrastructure, most of which dates from the 1960s and 1970s. 

While retrofitting older facilities to support new R&D activities has been the primary approach used in 

the last decade, investment in new facilities would likely improve research productivity and reduce

research costs. As one way to help manage costs and promote research integration, DOE’s current 

approach is to focus its nuclear facility investments at the INL while maintaining various unique 

capabilities at other sites. DOE is also coordinating with university-based research facilities. Finally, DOE 

makes its facilities available to industry and university researchers, often through joint research projects

or user facilities. 

 92 Klein, Andrew C., “Nuclear Energy R&D Infrastructure Report for The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future”, 

2011.
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Early in 2008, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy commissioned Battelle Memorial Institute to engage the 

domestic nuclear energy industry, academic community, and national laboratories in an effort to 

analyze the capabilities needed to support successful deployment of new nuclear technologies by 

2050.93 This series of reports was intended as a response to a 2008 review of DOE’s nuclear R&D 

programs by the National Academy of Sciences. 94 Ultimately, DOE, INL, and Battelle conducted a threephase process to identify the highest priority needs in terms of nuclear R&D capabilities and facilities. 

In the first phase of its study, Battelle sought input from 34 organizations to articulate R&D goals for the 

2010–2050 timeframe and identify and prioritize the capabilities required to achieve these goals. In the 

second phase, INL assessed the availability and state of existing U.S. R&D infrastructure. In the third 

phase, a senior executive team—led by Battelle, but including members from industry, academia and 

the national laboratories—reviewed the results of both studies, along with industry goals, current DOE 

program activities, and capability gaps. Based on this review, the executive team identified a set of key 

priorities (shown in table 7) in several nuclear R&D focus areas that would require “unique-to-nuclear” 

facilities and capabilities. 

Table 7. Summary of Nuclear R&D Facility Priorities95

 

93 Battelle Memorial Institute, Nuclear Energy for the Future: Required Research and Development Capabilities – An Industry 

Perspective, Columbus, OH, 2008. 94 National Academy of Sciences, Review of DOE’s Nuclear Energy Research and Development Program, 2008. 95 Battelle (2008)
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In addition to those priority areas, the Batelle study also identified nine specific capabilities and/or 

facilities that it judged essential to conducting a successful nuclear energy RD&D program for the next 

20 to 50 years. Because these capabilities/facilities were considered essential, we reviewed their status.

1. Nuclear Education Facilities—There remain approximately 27 research and training reactors on 

university campuses and most nuclear engineering programs have, at minimum, fundamental 

radiation detection and measurement laboratories. The recent introduction of the NEUP has 

enabled stronger and continuing investments in core competencies and infrastructure. During fiscal 

years 2009 and 2010 the NEUP provided more than $18 million for infrastructure, instrumentation 

and facilities improvements on university campuses. 

2. Thermal Neutron Irradiation Capability—Several thermal test reactors of sufficient size and 

availability to irradiate new fuel design pins and material test specimens to provide prototypical 

results currently operate in the DOE complex. These include the ATR at INL and the High Flux 

Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The ATR has recently been 

designated by DOE as a National Scientific User Facility. 

3. Fast Neutron Irradiation Capability—There are currently no high-volume fast neutron irradiation 

testing facilities operating in the U.S. Limited, small-volume R&D capabilities have been developed 

and exist at a few thermal research reactors. Currently, the U.S. uses irradiation capabilities in 

foreign countries to conduct limited tests on materials and fuel. Since the U.S. has not operated any 

significant fast neutron irradiation capabilities for nearly two decades while other countries have 

continued to operate and provide such resources, the U.S. could gain significant access to fast 

neutron irradiation capabilities at a fraction of the cost if it were to initiate and sustain international 

discussions on the development of these types of vital facilities. 

4. Radiochemistry Laboratories —Over the last 30 years, many fuel cycle research and development 

facilities have been shut down or re-directed for other uses due to a lack of funds for sustained 

research and increased costs for maintenance and regulatory compliance. A few facilities are still 

operating in the national laboratory system (mostly at INL and ORNL, but also at the Savannah River 

Site near Aiken, SC, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA, Los Alamos National 

Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA) which 

can continue to be used for RD&D efforts aimed at advancing a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle. As 

with the fast neutron irradiation capabilities discussed above, the U.S. could gain access to 

significant sources of data and information if it took a lead role in organizing international 

collaborations to build sizable radiochemical RD&D laboratories.

5. Hot Cells for Separations and Post-Irradiation Examination—A number of DOE national laboratories 

maintain hot cell facilities that are currently used for separations research work, or could be 

configured to do so. These facilities span a wide range of sizes and activities. Specifically, facilities96

located at ORNL, INL, and the Savannah River Site (SRS) might possibly be considered use for in 

testing advanced separations technology; however the particular use must be compatible with their 

original design and application. 

 

96 ORNL’s Radiochemical Development Center, the Fuel Conditioning Facility at INL, and the H Canyon facility at SRS.
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Additionally, several large hot cell facilities in the DOE complex can be used to examine and test 

irradiated fuels and material.97 However, the Subcommittee also notes the recently increased 

importance of extended dry storage of SNF and the need for a defensible technical basis to underpin 

such storage. The only hot cell facility capable of handling full-size dry storage casks (Technical Area 

North at INL) is decommissioned. This could significantly limit efforts to develop the technical basis

for extended dry cask storage.

6. Facilities for Heat Transport and Safety Analysis—Currently, there are no thermal loops operating 

in the DOE complex that are capable of testing at the extreme temperatures required by the hightemperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) concepts being currently researched and developed. A 

small-scale HTGR testing facility is currently under development at Oregon State University and will 

be completed in the summer of 2011. Limited heat transport and safety analysis facilities currently 

exist for licensing and computer code verification and validation for the current generation of LWRs

and for some advanced LWR concepts.98 There are limited-to-no heat transport and safety analysis 

flow loops available in the US today for liquid metal or molten salt reactor simulation and testing, or 

for computer model validation and verification for these systems, or for safety analysis for use in 

licensing proceedings for these reactor technology types. 

7. Fuel Development Laboratories—Fuel development typically proceeds through a number of phases 

prior to the fabrication of full-scale assemblies. Unfortunately, the full range of facilities needed to 

support fuel development does not currently exist, although some of the national laboratory hot 

cells could be utilized, depending on the size of the fuel components. International laboratories and 

fuel vendors, notably in France, Japan and Russia, might be utilized for a small number of fuel test 

development activities. Some of the required capabilities for developing next-generation reactor 

fuels are currently available at national laboratories and at industrial facilities that are currently 

being used by fuel vendors to develop new fuel designs. Unlike new LWR fuel, however, recycled 

reactor fuel (MOX, for example) must be assembled remotely and will require shielded and 

safeguarded facilities. 

8. Prototype High-Temperature Reactor for Licensing and Demonstration—Across the globe, there 

are only a few small gas-cooled test reactors, including the High-Temperature Test Reactor (HTTR) in 

Japan and the 10-MWt pebble-bed test reactor in China. The only large-scale Pebble Bed Modular 

Reactor (PBMR) prototype, previously under construction in South Africa, is no longer under 

consideration. The Chinese have a project underway to build a 250 MWt PBMR. The Next 

Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) would be the only large (300–400 MWt) demonstration of a 

combined electricity/process heat plant, if its design and construction is ever completed.

9. Prototype Fast Reactor for Licensing and Demonstration—Most of the large-scale (greater the 200 

MWth) fast reactors built globally have been shut down. The last large fast reactor shut down in the 

United States was the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), which was built to test fast reactor fuel designs 

 97 They include the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF) at INL, the Irradiated Fuels Examination Laboratory (IFEL), the Irradiated 

Materials Examination and Testing Laboratory (IMET) at ORNL and the Chemistry and Metallurgical Research Facility Wing 9 hot 

cells at LANL. The HFEF has recently been designated by DOE as part of the ATR National Scientific User Facility for use by 

industry and academia, as well as by the traditional Naval Reactors and DOE users.

98 These take the form of both integral systems test facilities, as exemplified by the APEX (advanced, large-scale pressurized 

water reactors) and MASLWR (small, modular pressurized water reactors) facilities at Oregon State University and the PUMA 

facility (advanced, large-scale boiling water reactors) at Purdue University, and separate effects testing facilities at INL and at 

Pennsylvania State University, University Wisconsin, University of California - Berkeley, Texas A&M University, North Carolina 

State University, Oregon State University, Purdue University and others. 
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and primary circuit components. There are no current plans in the United States for a prototype fast 

reactor demonstration at the present time. Internationally, a few fast reactors still exist where 

limited U.S. licensing and demonstration activities could be arranged. These include reactors in 

Japan, Russia, India, and China with the latter two having only small test reactors so far. China has 

signed an agreement with Russia to build two 800 MWt sodium-cooled fast reactors with design 

commencing in 2011 and construction in 2013.99 Furthermore, there are fast spectrum reactors 

currently in the design and construction phases in Russia and India. If these countries were 

interested in collaborating, U.S. researchers and regulators could obtain valuable experience in 

licensing and regulatory R&D for these types of reactors.

4.6 Addressing the Challenges Facing the U.S. Nuclear Energy RD&D Program

With federal discretionary budgets under increasing pressure, the ability to articulate a clear direction or 

agenda for the U.S. nuclear energy R&D program, to prioritize elements of that agenda, and to set 

performance objectives and evaluate the effectiveness of related activities on an ongoing basis will 

obviously be critical. 

In the interest of maximizing the effectiveness of DOE’s R&D program going forward, the Subcommittee 

is pleased to see that DOE is taking steps to launch a comprehensive Quadrennial Technology Review 

(QTR), consistent with a recommendation from a recent PCAST report.100 According to DOE’s QTR 

framing document, “the DOE-QTR is concerned primarily with activities to develop and demonstrate 

new energy technologies in support of national energy goals. These are multi-year efforts in which 

science, technology, economics, and energy policy intertwine. In view of the multitude of technologies 

that could be developed and demonstrated, analytically-based priorities and coordination of RD&D 

efforts with policy are essential to facilitate deployment by the for-profit sector.”101 The QTR will thus 

provide a useful opportunity to periodically revisit and refine DOE’s existing nuclear energy R&D 

Roadmap and to situate nuclear programs in the broader federal energy R&D agenda. As part of the 

QTR, DOE should consider opportunities for improving its RD&D program, both in terms of process and 

management and in terms of technology focus. 

The Subcommittee believes that DOE’s nuclear energy R&D Roadmap is a good science-based step 

toward the development of an effective, long-term R&D program. The Roadmap should be periodically 

updated (we recommend approximately every four years—consistent with the QER/QTR process—or 

when circumstances indicate). In addition, the Roadmap should be supported by more detailed, 

frequently updated, and transparent research and implementation plans.

As DOE develops RD&D program plans based on the QTR and on present and future versions of the

Nuclear Energy R&D Roadmap it should explicitly apply the evaluation criteria noted in the BRC’s charter 

using transparent, unbiased multi-attribute decision making approaches. At the same time, DOE should 

build in the flexibility needed to respond to unexpected technology developments and changing societal 

 

99 Sonal Patel, “China Begins Operation of Experimental Fast Reactor,” September 1, 2011, available at: www.powermag.com. 100 DOE’s Quadrennial Technology Review framing document is available at http://energy.gov/QTR. 101 DOE Quadrennial Technology Review framing document, p. 5.
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concerns and preferences. The recent and still-unfolding events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power 

plant are just one example of the type of development that should be reflected in future updates of the 

R&D roadmap.

The Subcommittee urges that system assessments and decision-making account for the 

interconnections among the various elements of the nuclear fuel cycle (including transportation, interim 

storage, and disposal) and for broader safety, security, and nonproliferation concerns. For example, 

adding facilities to one phase or section of the nuclear fuel cycle (e.g., reprocessing) could change 

overall system costs or otherwise affect the performance of other parts of the system (e.g., uranium 

recovery) and the system as a whole. As a recent MIT report concluded,102 the choice between different

nuclear fuel cycles (once through, modified open or fully closed) will depend on the technologies we 

develop and on a societal weighting of goals including safety, economics, waste management, and 

nonproliferation. As with reactors, once fuel cycle facilities are built they can be expected to operate for 

many decades. Thus any decision by industry or the government to construct particular types of 

commercial-scale infrastructure could possibly have significant and very long-term impacts on nuclear 

power development. Such choices can be made most effectively only if the interconnections between 

and among the elements of the fuel cycle system are well understood.

Implementation of the Roadmap and of supporting R&D programs should involve a broad range of 

participants including universities, private firms, and national laboratories in cooperation with 

international research partners. Integrating the efforts of these disparate participants will require a 

concerted effort and is essential if DOE is to maximize the value of the RD&D it supports. DOE should 

undertake efforts to strengthen coordination and organizational and mission alignment across 

laboratories, energy hubs, innovation centers, and other entities.

Safety concerns, along with nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear material safeguards and security 

(discussed in the next section), deserve special attention in the RD&D roadmap. Whether present and 

future nuclear technologies can gain public acceptance and achieve commercial viability will depend in 

large part on whether the public, regulators, policymakers and others perceive them as safe, secure, and 

proliferation resistant. Integrating safety, security and safeguards considerations in future evaluations 

of advanced nuclear energy systems and technologies will allow the United States to maintain 

consistency between its technology development agenda, its commercial interests, and its international 

policy agenda. 

As a result of the focus on repository design issues specific to the Yucca Mountain site, generic R&D on 

deep geologic disposal for the last few decades has been assigned a lesser priority within DOE’s R&D 

portfolio. The move by DOE to absorb the R&D responsibilities of the Office of Civilian Radioactive 

Waste Management into the Office of Nuclear Energy presents an opportunity for better integration of 

waste management considerations into the DOE nuclear energy research agenda. The implementation 

of the Commission’s recommendation that a new waste management organization outside of DOE be 

created with responsibility for RD&D directly related to waste storage, transport, and disposal could 

 102 The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010.
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have the effect of creating RD&D stovepipes that are disconnected from DOE’s RD&D on alternative 

energy systems. It also gives rise to the possibility that DOE’s RD&D program would be less relevant to 

the repository or transportation programs. The Subcommittee urges efforts by both organizations to 

overcome any organizational barriers and to promote integration. 

Going forward, DOE’s nuclear energy R&D program should include an emphasis on the development of 

disposal and waste form alternatives that are optimized to work with a range of potential natural and 

engineered barriers in the disposal system. If alternative nuclear energy systems are deployed in the 

future, however, they will likely generate a greater variety of waste streams. Efforts to manage these 

wastes will benefit from an improved understanding of different combinations of geologic disposal 

environments, engineered barriers and waste forms. R&D on waste forms and disposal alternatives 

should be coordinated between the DOE and the new nuclear waste management organization, with the 

understanding that generic research in this area would remain the responsibility of DOE (and would be 

paid for from general appropriations), while research specific to particular disposal sites would be 

undertaken by the new organization.

The federal nuclear energy research portfolio should include a component that investigates the 

structure of public attitudes toward and concerns about nuclear power—why the public holds certain 

preferences and what those preferences are at any given point. As stated above, these public 

preferences will be critical to the successful deployment of advanced nuclear energy facilities—on either 

the front end or the back end of the fuel cycle.

103 Current understanding of public attitudes and 

preferences is inadequate, and in any event these attitudes and preferences will undoubtedly change 

with time and with changing views on safety, energy security, environmental protection and other 

issues. Targeted social science research can help improve understanding of the public’s concerns and 

provide the foundation for a technically informed consideration of social issues in the research agenda 

and in technology deployment decisions. Public acceptance and policy preferences are and will remain 

important—if not decisive—in shaping nuclear materials management policies.104 The new organization 

charged with managing the nation’s nuclear waste program could take the lead role in defining and 

providing funding for this type of research. 

As noted earlier, the Office of Nuclear Energy’s annual R&D budget in recent years (FY 2008–2011) has

been approximately $500 million. Given the larger budget challenges the nation confronts, we believe 

there is still merit to increasing federal RD&D investment in nuclear energy technology as part of a 

general expansion of energy-related R&D to advance core policy goals. The Subcommittee notes that 

the recent PCAST report endorsed an earlier proposal by the American Energy Innovation Council105 to 

provide $16 billion in annual federal support for energy technology innovation across all energy 

technologies—an increase of about $10 billion per year over current funding levels, with all of that 

 

103 Michael O’Hare, “Nuclear Waste Facility Siting and Local Opposition”, BRC Commissioned White Paper, http://brc.gov. 104 Hank Jenkins-Smith, “Public Beliefs, Concerns and Preferences Regarding the Management of Used Nuclear Fuel and High 

Level Radioactive Waste”, BRC Commissioned White Paper, http://brc.gov. 105American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC) – A Business Plan for American’s Energy Future –

http://www.americanenergyinnovation.org/full-report.
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increase coming from new revenue sources. Of this $16 billion-per-year total, PCAST recommends that 

$12 billion be directed to basic R&D and $4 billion to large-scale demonstration projects. While the 

PCAST report does not recommend a specific level of support for nuclear energy technologies, the 

Subcommittee also notes that a recent MIT study recommended roughly double the current funding 

level —approximately $1 billion per year—to support nuclear energy RD&D and related infrastructure 

needs. This is roughly double the DOE’s budget for nuclear energy R&D in recent years. The MIT study 

also concluded that additional funding would be needed to support large-scale government-industry 

demonstration projects at the appropriate time.106 

In considering how federal RD&D funding could be best applied, the Subcommittee believes that 

opportunities exist, both for incremental improvement in the technologies that currently dominate the 

U.S. and global reactor fleet and to achieve more profound nuclear technology breakthroughs in the 

longer term. To address the former, the United States should devote some share of RD&D resources to 

sustaining and improving LWR technology, particularly in light of the increased attention to safety and 

waste management issues triggered by recent events in Japan. Technological advances in areas such as 

cooling system design, higher-burn up fuels, reactor power uprates, digital controls, material properties, 

and manufacturing techniques can reduce the amount of radioactive waste produced per unit of energy 

generated, reduce the probability of accidents, and lower construction costs for new reactors. At the 

same time, it will also be important to look beyond incremental improvements and continue to invest in 

more advanced and potentially game-changing technologies that are farther from being commercially 

competitive but that have the potential to improve the waste situation and other system attributes in a 

fundamental way. 

Turning to the infrastructure issues discussed previously, it is clear that while existing facilities are 

adequate to support continued R&D progress, particularly in the area of LWR technology, this

infrastructure is quite old. Substantially enhanced and larger-scale capabilities will be necessary to 

support a longer-term effort to develop advanced fuel cycles that include reprocessing or separations. 

In particular, and as noted in the Battelle study described earlier, existing U.S. capacity to conduct fast 

neutron irradiation is significantly deficient, especially if there is a desire to utilize this technology to 

recycle fissile material or destroy fission products in the future. A fast spectrum test reactor would best 

meet the range of R&D needs in this area. Likewise, radiochemistry laboratories, hot cells, and fuel 

development laboratories with the additional capacity and sophistication needed to investigate 

advanced fuel cycles would be needed, as would large-scale thermal loops and flow facilities to test 

thermal transport capabilities. Finally, pre-commercial prototypes are an important missing piece in the 

infrastructure available to support the continued development of high-temperature reactors and fast 

spectrum reactors. Both of these reactor concepts represent a significant departure from the current 

and next generation of LWR designs.

 106 Related to the need for additional funding, a recent PCAST study suggested that a tax on energy be used to raise revenues 

for expanded federal investment in nuclear and other areas of energy technology R&D. 
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Meanwhile, much of the existing nuclear infrastructure in the national laboratories, industry and 

universities is more than 30 years old (and in some cases more than 50 years old). This does not mean it 

can no longer serve many of its intended purposes, but it does mean that resources are needed to 

support modifications, upgrades, equipment additions, and sustained regular maintenance.107 

Maintaining and expanding the use of particular elements of the current infrastructure, and developing 

additional facilities to meet new and/or expanded opportunities as resources allow—both domestically 

and internationally—appears to be the approach that DOE and the nuclear energy RD&D community

have chosen for the time being. 

A last issue concerns the need for early work to develop regulations for advanced nuclear energy 

systems such as reactors cooled by fluids other than water, aqueous and non-aqueous recycle facilities, 

and small modular reactors. The early development of regulatory frameworks would be extremely 

helpful both in terms of guiding the design of new systems and in terms of removing an impediment to 

commercial investment by providing an increased degree of confidence that new designs and systems 

can be successfully licensed. The efforts underway at the NRC (through the development of NUREG1860) and elsewhere are needed to develop the regulatory framework to support continued 

development and eventual deployment of next-generation technologies. The Subcommittee believes 

that the NRC’s efforts in this area, including new efforts in anticipatory research, should receive 5 to 10

percent of total federal funding for reactor and fuel cycle technology R&D. Recognizing that the vast 

majority of the NRC’s funding is provided by NRC licensees and that the work on advanced nuclear 

energy system regulation is not being conducted in support of regulating those licensees, funding for the 

development of the advanced nuclear energy system regulatory framework should continue to be 

provided from government appropriations. Finally, the Subcommittee supports the NRC’s current 

performance-based approach to developing regulations for advanced nuclear energy systems. 

4.7 Key Findings

(1) Recent findings of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technologies (PCAST) 

highlight the need for better coordination of energy policies and programs across the federal 

government; for a substantial increase in federal support of energy-related research, 

development, demonstration, and deployment; and for efforts to explore new revenue options 

to provide this support.108

 107 The task of retrofitting and/or upgrading older facilities has also become more challenging as environmental and other 

regulations have become more demanding. For example, tightened seismic requirements may necessitate extensive physical 

upgrades including enhanced bracing, new ventilation systems, new fire protection, and more. Efforts to expand existing 

facilities or site new facilities, meanwhile, may be complicated by the physical encroachment of other site activities and the 

surrounding community; by the availability of vital site infrastructure (including power, water, sewer, and office facilities); and 

by the need to comply with National Environmental Policy Act requirements, as well as new security requirements for the 

protection of nuclear materials. 108 President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Report to the President on Accelerating the Pace of 

Change in Energy Technologies Through an Integrated Federal Energy Policy, November 2010. Available at: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-energy-tech-report.pdf.
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(2) Federal R&D funding of all kinds will be under enormous budget pressure in the years ahead, so 

it will be especially important to focus scarce public resources on addressing key gaps or needs 

in the U.S. nuclear RD&D infrastructure and to leverage effectively the full range of resources 

that exist in the academic community and industry.

(3) Within the DOE complex are infrastructure and human capital assets whose missions have been 

completed or are nearly complete. In several cases, these assets are nearly irreplaceable. As the 

missions of these sites come to a close, the DOE should strongly consider the economic and 

strategic value of utilizing these assets to support new operational and/or RD&D objectives.

(4) Substantially enhanced and larger-scale facilities will be necessary to support a longer-term 

effort to develop advanced fuel cycles that include reprocessing or separations. Well-designed, 

multi-purpose national- or international-user test facilities that can be used to advance 

knowledge of advanced fuel cycle options and other areas of inquiry are an example of the kind 

of RD&D infrastructure that could yield high returns on public investment. There may also be 

non-R&D infrastructure needed to implement the BRC's recommendations such as that required 

to process and store materials destined for a SNF/HLW repository.

(5) A well-conceived federal R&D program should be attentive to opportunities in both near-term 

improvements in the safety and performance of existing LWR technology and in longer-term 

efforts to advance potential “game-changing” nuclear technologies and systems that could 

achieve very large benefits across multiple evaluation criteria compared to current technologies 

and systems.

(6) The DOE’s nonproliferation work within the fuel cycle R&D program should ensure that new 

technologies are reducing the generation and/or availability of all proliferant materials of 

concern and not strictly plutonium.

(7) Public understanding and acceptance will be critical to the successful deployment of advanced 

nuclear energy facilities – on either the front end or the back end of the fuel cycle. 

(8) The move by DOE to absorb the R&D responsibilities of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste 

Management into the Office of Nuclear Energy presents an opportunity for better integration of 

waste management considerations into the DOE nuclear energy research agenda. Challenges 

remain, however, in coordinating DOE’s RD&D activities with those of a new waste management 

organization dedicated to managing the nation’s nuclear waste transportation, storage, and 

disposal program.

(9) Ongoing efforts at the NRC to develop a regulatory framework for novel components of 

advanced nuclear energy systems, and to perform supporting anticipatory research, are 

essential to help guide the design of new systems and to remove a key impediment to 

commercial investment by providing an increased degree of confidence that new reactor and 

fuel cycle technologies can be successfully licensed.
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5. INTERNATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

5.1 International Reactor Safety

Recent events in Japan have reinforced the importance of a focus on nuclear safety. Although the 

United States will not suffer any significant material consequences from the radiological releases that 

occurred in Japan, the events there will and should affect public attitudes toward nuclear technology. 

Even if the health consequences of the Fukushima accident prove to be small compared to the direct 

impacts of the earthquake and tsunami, the potential danger and cost of a nuclear disaster remains an 

abiding public concern. This concern must be directly and forthrightly addressed. 

This means careful scrutiny of what can be learned from the events in Japan and the introduction of any 

necessary changes in our regulatory system. It also requires the careful examination of these lessons in 

the context of the research, development, design, construction, and operation of the advanced 

technologies that are the subject of this Subcommittee’s study. 

Events in Japan also reinforce the need for expanded international efforts in safety that parallel the 

Subcommittee’s suggestions (discussed in the next two sections below) for enhancing international 

nonproliferation and security regimes. There are 61 reactors under construction around the world and 

significant expansion of nuclear power is planned in the years ahead, particularly in China, Russia, India, 

Korea, and Japan. Over 60 countries that do not currently have nuclear power plants have approached 

the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to explore the possibility of acquiring one; the IAEA 

anticipates that about 14 of these emerging nuclear nations will proceed over the next decade or two. 

Several of these “new-entrants” have already committed to construction. And in all nations that have or 

plan to construct nuclear reactor facilities, there is a paramount need to ensure the safety of spent fuel 

storage and disposal. 

The capacity to pursue nuclear technology in the United States will depend to a large extent on other 

countries’ success in achieving a high level of safety performance. Many of these countries have not yet 

demonstrated that they have the infrastructure or the commitment to a safety culture that provides 

confidence that they can succeed. As the events of Fukushima have shown, even a nation that has 

successfully operated nuclear reactors can have difficulties preparing for and responding to major 

accidents. Since the events at Fukushima, the international community has worked to strengthen global 

nuclear safety, particularly through the work of the IAEA and its focus on enhanced international safety 

standards and expanded safety services. Although the use of an international regulator may be 

appealing to some, the prospect of such is quite low given that most local populations prefer their own 

politically accountable and culturally sensitive regulators. In the absence of such an international 

regulator, it is likely that the voluntary programs of the IAEA will provide leadership and guidance in this 

area for the foreseeable future. The Subcommittee strongly supports these efforts and encourages 

continued expansion and strengthening of IAEA voluntary programs committed to the safe operation of 

nuclear power plants.
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The Subcommittee also believes that the opportunity to enhance global reactor safety should not fall 

upon the IAEA alone. The events of Fukushima should function as important lesson for the nuclear 

industry and the Subcommittee strongly supports the actions taken by the World Association of Nuclear 

Operators (WANO) to incorporate lessons learned from the events at Fukushima. Shortly after the 

events at Fukushima, WANO asked the operators of every nuclear power plant in the world to take 

“specific actions to verify their ability to deal with a station blackout or a beyond-design-basis event like 

fire or flood.”109 In addition, the WANO Governing Board established a high level commission tasked 

with recommending changes to WANO programs and organization as a result of the lessons from 

Fukushima. Their commission has recommended that WANO better define its roles and responsibilities 

in an emergency, such as Fukushima, and develop a world-wide integrated event response strategy. 

Recommendations also direct WANO to add emergency preparedness as a core review area to each and 

every WANO peer review, to conduct peer reviews for all initial reactor start-ups, and to look more 

closely at fuel storage – including fuel pools and dry cask storage.110

In addition to the work done by the operators of nuclear power plants, efforts by international nuclear 

vendors to embrace additional and voluntary self-governance regimes have also gained traction. 

Several “principles of conduct”111 recently adopted by a number of the world’s leading civilian nuclear 

power vendors describe their commitment to undertake good faith efforts in several areas: safety, 

security, environmental protection, compensation for nuclear damage, nonproliferation, and ethics. 

Participating vendors express their intention to follow these principles in designing and exporting 

nuclear power plants. These principles are based upon practices derived from the experience of nuclear 

power plant vendors and operators and the standards promulgated by the International Atomic Energy 

Agency.

112 The Subcommittee supports these efforts and encourages industry to continue pushing 

forward with the implementation of global best practices across a range of principles related to the safe 

operation of the nuclear industry

A major international effort, encompassing international organizations, regulators, vendors, 

operators, and technical support organizations, should be launched so as to enable the safe 

application of nuclear energy systems and the safe management of nuclear wastes in all countries 

that pursue this technology. 

5.2 Nonproliferation Considerations

Because enrichment, reprocessing and recycled fuel fabrication facilities typically produce or utilize large 

amounts of separated fissile materials, particularly enriched uranium and plutonium, they are generally 

 109 WANO, “A Post-Fukushima WANO – Applying Lessons Learned” available at: http://www.wano.info/press-release/wanopress-release-3/. 110 WANO, WANO after Fukushima– Strengthening Global Nuclear Safety, Question and Answer Document, for 2011 WANO

Biennial General Meeting. Available at http://www.wano.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Q-A-Document-for-PressPack.pdf. 111 Nuclear Power Plant Exporters’ Principles of Conduct, available at http://nuclearprinciples.org/the-principles/. 112 Ibid.
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recognized as proliferation risks and are therefore considered particularly sensitive elements of the fuel 

cycle. 

These technologies can not only serve nuclear power needs, but can give countries the technical and 

physical capacity to obtain the direct-use nuclear materials required for a weapons program. Related

proliferation risks include the potential that countries might attempt to secretly divert materials from 

civilian nuclear facilities that they have declared to the IAEA under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 

(NPT), that countries might use know-how and equipment from declared programs to aid the 

construction of clandestine production facilities, for example clandestine enrichment plants, and that 

under some circumstances countries might withdraw from the NPT and then overtly misuse materials 

and facilities.

The NPT and other international and bilateral agreements establish a number of institutional and 

technical mechanisms for countering these risks: 

• Application of IAEA safeguards to provide timely detection of diversion of nuclear materials and 

to verify peaceful use of declared civil nuclear energy infrastructure;

• Ratification of the IAEA Additional Protocol to allow IAEA access to verify the absence of

clandestine production facilities;

• International agreements by nuclear supplier nations to apply export controls to detect and 

prevent transfers of dual-use equipment to clandestine production facilities;

• Use of national technical means and human intelligence to detect clandestine production 

efforts;

• Options for internationalizing the most sensitive parts of the fuel cycle to provide emerging 

nuclear energy nations with reliable and affordable access to these services; and

• An international system of bilateral and multilateral security and mutual defense agreements 

that reduce regional security concerns that could otherwise lead to decisions to proliferate.

None of these and other available measures are perfect, but taken together they can help reduce the 

number of proliferant states that the international community must manage, and can further isolate 

problematic countries so they are not viewed as role models for emerging nuclear energy nations in the 

developing world. Therefore all of these mechanisms merit continuing and substantial investment of 

U.S. resources and policy effort. The next sections take a more detailed look at some of these 

mechanisms, with a particular focus on those that are most pertinent to the charter of the BRC and to 

the charge of this Subcommittee.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or “NPT” provides the foundation of the 

international nuclear nonproliferation regime. Opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into 
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force in 1970. It currently has 189 signatories,

113 divided between Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) and 

Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS). Virtually all states in the international system have signed and 

ratified the treaty: only Israel, India, and Pakistan have declined to sign, and North Korea is the only 

state that has joined the treaty but later exercised its right to withdraw.

The NPT is designed to promote three main objectives: to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, to 

encourage eventual nuclear disarmament, and to provide a framework and enable widespread access to

peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The key provisions of the NPT therefore outline rights and 

responsibilities for state parties in the area of nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear energy, and 

disarmament.114 Article I states that no NWS may “transfer,” “assist, encourage or induce” any NNWS to 

“manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.” Article II requires NNWS parties not to "receive," 

"manufacture or otherwise acquire" nuclear weapons and “not to seek or receive any assistance in the 

manufacture of nuclear weapons." Article IV protects the right of all states to peaceful nuclear energy, 

conditional on their being in compliance with their Article II commitment: “Nothing in this Treaty shall 

be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, 

production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity 

with Articles I and II of this Treaty.” Article VI of the NPT calls for all parties to work towards nuclear 

disarmament: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on 

effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear 

disarmament.” As noted above, Article VI is often treated as exclusively applicable to NWS, though it 

clearly states that each of the parties to the treaty must pursue “negotiations in good faith”115 in pursuit 

of nuclear disarmament.

The workhorse of the NPT and other global nonproliferation regimes has been the IAEA safeguards 

system. Under cognizance of the IAEA, the safeguards systems serves as the verification mechanism for 

the NPT ensuring that all states are complying with their obligation to not use civil nuclear energy

programs for nuclear-weapons purposes.

All signatories to the NPT are required to have a comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) in place. 

These CSAs cover “all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the 

territory of a State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere.”116 Because IAEA 

safeguards are based on assessments of the correctness and completeness of a State’s declared nuclear 

material and nuclear-related activities, these CSAs are used to verify State reports of declared nuclear 

material and activities and are largely based on nuclear material accountancy, complemented by 

containment and surveillance techniques, such as tamper-proof seals and cameras that the IAEA installs 

at facilities. Verification measures include on-site inspections, visits, and ongoing monitoring.

 113 Scott D. Sagan, The International Security Implications of U.S. Domestic Nuclear Power Decisions, 2011. Commissioned paper 

for the BRC, www.brc.gov. 114 “The Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” United Nations, available at 

http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/pdf/NPTEnglish_Text.pdf. 115 Scott D. Sagan, “Shared Responsibilities for Nuclear Disarmament,” Daedalus 138:4 (Fall 2009):157-68. 116 IAEA, The Safeguards System of the International Atomic Energy Agency, http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/.
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Unfortunately, some events have challenged the efficacy and credibility of CSAs. In the mid-1980s to 

early 1990s, Iraq was engaged in a clandestine nuclear weapons program and thereby violating its 

safeguards obligations under the NPT. In response, the IAEA broadened the scope of materials and 

facilities covered by the safeguards and strengthened safeguards techniques.117 In 1992, the IAEA Board 

of Governors reaffirmed the agency's authority to conduct "special inspections" of suspected undeclared 

sites in NPT non-nuclear weapon states and in 1997, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a new 

safeguards model. Known as the “Additional Protocol” or “AP”, the protocol gave IAEA inspectors 

increased access to all aspects of a non-nuclear weapon state's nuclear program, even where nuclear 

material is not involved; required more detailed information on that program; allowed for the use of 

improved verification technologies (i.e., environmental sampling); and required more extensive 

inspections at declared nuclear sites.118 There are currently 104 countries with AP agreements in 

force.119

The agreements notwithstanding, growing nuclear energy demand and concerns over the spread of 

sensitive nuclear technologies are placing increased strain on international safeguards. With the 

development of more reprocessing and enrichment facilities (see Section 2, Table 4), one of the most 

vexing problems facing safeguards activities will be the verification of physical materials at fuel cycle 

facilities. In large bulk-handling facilities with high volume throughputs (hundreds to thousands of 

metric tons per year) and complicated equipment schematics, material unaccounted for or “MUF” can 

present a substantial proliferation challenge. Even as a small percentage of facility throughput, MUF can 

constitute significant quantities of unaccounted-for materials. Over the last 15 years, numerous 

examples have come to light where material accountancy failed to achieve the timely detection and 

resolution of anomalies. Some of these examples have involved large amounts of MUF that remained 

unresolved for months, years, or decades. 120

The Subcommittee endorses R&D efforts on modern safeguards technologies and supports the work 

of the U.S. government in supporting the IAEA in this area. The National Nuclear Security 

Administration (NNSA) is the principal federal sponsor of nuclear nonproliferation-related research and 

development. It is currently (in conjunction with the national laboratories) conducting R&D on

safeguards technologies with a focus on safeguards systems analysis and enhancements, safeguards-bydesign, material control and accountability (MC&A) modernization, modern inventory controls, software 

and hardware development, collaborative IT tools, and real-time process monitoring and data 

integration systems. Support for the development of novel safeguards technologies for declared 

facilities, as well as improved methods to detect undeclared facilities, is imperative not only because 

of the fundamentally important nature of the threat, but because of compounding issues related to 

their development. The IAEA finds itself constrained financially, lacking the resources to perform R&D

 

117 NTI, NPT Tutorial, http://www.nti.org/h_learnmore/npttutorial/chapter02_02.html. 118 IAEA, Model Protocol Additional to the Agreements Between States and the IAEA for the Application of Safeguards,

(INFCIRC/540) - http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/1997/infcirc540c.pdf. 119 http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sg_protocol.html- accessed May 5, 2011. 120 Testimony to the BRC delivered by Edwin Lyman on October 12, 2010.
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on the necessary technologies, while tasked with ever increasing responsibilities.121 Additionally, the 

size of the “safeguards market” just doesn’t allow for cost-effective production of units and the 

investment of R&D money from commercial players. As a result, the IAEA must rely on the R&D efforts 

of national governments.

Multilateral/Multinational Fuel Cycle Services Options

“Internationalized” approaches to providing access to sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle are not 

new and have been discussed in multiple forms since the 1946 Acheson-Lilienthal report and 

Eisenhower’s 1953 Atoms for Peace speech.122 Striking a balance between assuring the supply of fuel 

services and guaranteeing adherence to nonproliferation norms is difficult at best. In concert with the 

IAEA, several countries, including the United States, have proposed an array of options that would 

provide countries with credible, cost-efficient options for assurance of supply, including the 

development of a backup supply or “fuel banks” of enriched uranium, international fuel cycle centers, 

and government-to-government agreements. 

Today, as shown in Figure 13, the majority of nuclear energy programs worldwide are small, with less 

than 10 GWe of capacity (fewer than 10 reactors). Furthermore, while some uncertainty exists due to 

the nuclear accident that occurred in Japan, the number of countries with small nuclear energy 

programs is still expected to grow further. In 2011, Iran’s first power reactor reached criticality at 

Bushehr, adding another country to the list shown in Figure 13. In addition, today 65 additional

countries participate in IAEA technical cooperation projects related to the introduction of nuclear 

power. Total installed nuclear capacity in these nations with small programs accounts for less than 15

percent of total worldwide nuclear generation capacity. Given the structure of the global nuclear 

energy market, there are sound practical and economic reasons for nations to choose to use regional or 

international fuel cycle facilities and services, rather than developing nationally owned enrichment and 

reprocessing (of course, this logic may not be compelling to countries whose primary objective is to 

develop weapons capacity).

In 2004, the Director General of the IAEA appointed an international expert group to consider options 

for possible multilateral approaches to the front and back ends of the nuclear fuel cycle. This group’s 

report, Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle – INFCIRC/640,

123 was released in February of 

2005. It categorized the options for multilateral approaches into three major and distinct categories: 

assurances of services not involving the ownership of fuel cycle facilities, conversion of existing facilities 

to multinational facilities, and the construction of new jointly-owned facilities. 

 121 The IAEA currently has 151 member states and their budget is $447 million in 2011. The United States provides about 25% of 

that figure.

122 Regional Nuclear Fuel Cycle Centers study (1975-1977), International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation study (1977-1980), 

Expert Group on International Plutonium Storage (1978-1982), IAEA Committee on Assurances of Supply (1980-1987), United 

Nations Conference for the Promotion of International Cooperation in The Peaceful Uses of Nuclear energy (1987). 123 IAEA, Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Expert Group Report submitted to the Director General of the 

International Atomic Energy Agency, INFCIRC/640, 22 February, 2005. 

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2005/infcirc640.pdf.
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Figure 13. Worldwide Distribution of Civil Nuclear Energy Generation Capacity in 2010.124

Within the first option, it is assumed that a functional market operates for whichever fuel service is 

required, either through state-owned enterprises or commercial enterprises. Of course, market options 

currently vary across the fuel cycle (i.e., more commercial options exist for enrichment than they do for 

reprocessing, and none exist for spent fuel and high-level waste disposal). While a diversity of supply 

options alone does not necessarily guarantee the health of a market and its ability to answer demand, it 

can affect the level of confidence a “supplied” country has in how “assured” their supplies are. In some 

cases, the promise of supply via existing and perfectly healthy markets is not good enough for a country 

to forgo their own indigenous fuel cycle development, ostensibly the case in Iran. This guarantee can be 

strengthened via increased levels of agreement beyond that of the normal market supply, either first 

through consortia of suppliers providing assurances, then through consortia of governments providing 

assurances, and lastly through agreements with the IAEA. 

As the 2005 IAEA report noted, the advantages and disadvantages of either converting a national facility 

to an international facility or of building a new internationally managed facility will vary based on the 

type of facility being discussed (enrichment, reprocessing, etc.). The advantages of converting a facility 

to international ownership include sharing capital investment across a wider base, precluding further 

dissemination of facility construction know-how, strengthening proliferation resistance due to 

international management and operating teams, and pooling expertise and resources. Disadvantages 

include the potential need for additional facilities in politically diverse countries to provide necessary 

assurances that fuel supplies will not be withheld due to ideological reasons, the need to balance 

existing property rights with potential proliferation risks due to an increased number of international 

 124 World Nuclear Association at http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html, update for Dec 1, 2011.
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partners, the difficulty of implementing international management, and the need to back-fit safeguards 

depending on the host nation’s prior approach.

Advantages to building a new fuel cycle facility under international controls include the ability to

(1) include safeguards during construction instead of needing to back-fit these safeguards, (2) pool 

expertise and resources, (3) size the facility economically, and (4) strengthen proliferation resistance 

through international management and operation. The disadvantages of building new facilities include 

potentially higher proliferation risks due to broader access to know-how (depending on the 

management model chosen), uncertain commercial competitiveness, and the potential for breakout and 

retention of fissile materials. 

Regardless of the advantages and disadvantages of each of the options, it is clear that cross-cutting 

technical, legal, cultural, political and financial factors will affect their perceived feasibility and 

desirability. These factors may be decisive in any future efforts to develop support for multinational 

approaches at the national and international level.

With respect to U.S. policy for the nuclear fuel cycle, this Subcommittee believes that the 

establishment of multinational or regional fuel cycle facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards 

could be a very positive development, giving countries an option to enjoy more reliable access to the 

benefits of nuclear power while simultaneously reducing proliferation risks. As the United States 

moves forward with developing its own consolidated storage and permanent disposal capacity, it 

should work with the IAEA and with existing and emerging nuclear nations to establish conditions 

under which one or more nations, including the United States, can offer to take foreign spent fuel for 

ultimate disposition.

Recent examples of multinational “assurance” approaches include the IAEA’s $150 million fund for 

uranium purchases,

125 Russia’s creation of the International Uranium Enrichment Center,126 the 

120-metric-ton low enriched uranium (LEU) Fuel Bank127 in Angarsk, and the establishment of the UK 

Nuclear Fuel Assurance Plan.

128 The UK plan is basically a bilateral agreement that is supposed to serve 

as a model for government-to-government arrangements between supplier and recipient states, where 

the supply of low enriched uranium is not disrupted for non-commercial (political) reasons.

Although the discussion of multinational facilities and fuel services typically focuses on securing 

enrichment and reprocessing facilities, the same concepts can be applied to the disposal of spent fuel

and high-level waste. All countries with nuclear power will have to store spent nuclear fuel and high-

 

125 Fund was seeded by NTI and supplement by voluntary donation from the European Union, Kuwait, Norway, the United Arab 

Emirates, and the U.S. December 2, 2010 statement made to IAEA Board of Governors by Glyn Davies, U.S. Ambassador to the 

IAEA - http://vienna.usmission.gov/101203nfs.html. 126 Incorporated as a joint venture between Russia's Tekhsnabeksport and Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom. 127 The fuel bank consists of two 1,000 megawatt-reactor loads of LEU. 128 Seen as a “virtual assurance mechanism that would facilitate access to nuclear energy to avoid the huge cost and technical 

challenge involved in establishing a nuclear fuel cycle.” Statement made at the 2010 IAEA General Conference by Charles 

Hendy, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change of the United Kingdom, 

http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC54/Statements/uk.pdf.
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level waste for some period of time and ultimately provide for its disposal (internally or internationally). 

Even if countries reprocess spent fuel, they will need to dispose of the high-level radioactive waste

components that remain. 
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Spent fuel contains approximately 1 percent plutonium and the self-protecting nature of the 

radioactivity will diminish over time, making the plutonium more accessible. Thus, it is in the best 

interests of the United States and the international community to have spent fuel under effective and 

transparent control and to ensure that no spent fuel becomes “orphaned” anywhere in the world with 

inadequate safeguards and security.

Fuel take-away arrangements would allow countries, particularly those with relatively small national 

programs, to avoid the very costly and politically difficult step of providing for waste disposal on their 

soil. Fuel take-away could also provide a strong incentive for emerging nuclear nations to take key 

actions, such as ratifying the IAEA Additional Protocol, that can strengthen nonproliferation protections 

and further isolate the current small number of problematic proliferant states. The U.S. government 

and U.S. industry have implemented a relatively small but successful initiative to ship used foreign 

research reactor fuel to U.S. facilities for storage and disposal. This program has demonstrated 

meaningful nonproliferation and security benefits. A similar capability to accept spent fuel from 

foreign commercial reactors, in cases where the President would choose to authorize the imports for 

reasons of U.S. national security, would be a desirable component of a larger policy framework that 

creates a clear path for the safe and permanent disposition of U.S. spent fuel. The decision to 

authorize imports of foreign spent fuel may depend on progress in developing storage and permanent 

disposal capacity for U.S. wastes. The current lack of domestic disposal capability severely hampers our 

nation’s ability to consider such imports, even in cases where clear potential exists for increased 

national security risk for the United States. 

The Subcommittee believes the availability of used fuel take-away would increase substantially the 

incentives for some emerging nuclear nations to forgo the indigenous development of sensitive fuelcycle facilities in return for access to regional or international facilities. In that context, government 

support for limited fuel supply and take-away initiatives to advance U.S. national security interests can 

help change the way U.S. disposal facilities are perceived by the public and by the national security 

community—not simply as final resting places for nuclear waste, but as essential elements of a 

comprehensive strategy for maintaining the nuclear energy option while simultaneously addressing 

proliferation and security concerns.

5.3 Security and Counter-terrorism

As stated in the communiqué of the Washington Nuclear Security Summit, April 13, 2010, “Nuclear 

terrorism is one of the most challenging threats to international security, and strong nuclear security 

measures are the most effective means to prevent terrorists, criminals, or other unauthorized actors 

from acquiring nuclear materials. Success will require responsible national actions and effective 

international cooperation.”129 To date, the United States has worked to enhance global capacity to 

prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism by conducting multilateral activities aimed at 

strengthening the operations, plans, policies, procedures, and interoperability of partner nations, 

through a variety of activities, most recently including: the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, Nunn-Lugar 

 129 U.S. Department of State, “Principles of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism,” available at:

http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c37071.htm.
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Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs (CTR), Global Threat Reduction Initiative Programs (GTRI), and 

the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GINCT).

Held in April 2010 and attended by 47 nations, the U.S.-hosted 2010 Nuclear Security Summit was 

launched with the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material worldwide within 4 years. Indicating a 

strong commitment on the part of the U.S. government, other achievements since that time have 

included signing a plutonium disposition protocol with Russia,

130 returning Russian origin highly enriched 

uranium (HEU) back to Russia,

131 converting the Kyoto University research reactor in Japan from HEU to 

LEU,

132 and pursuing ratification to an amendment of the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear 

Materials that would extend and strengthen the Convention’s coverage of peaceful nuclear material in 

storage or use at domestic nuclear facilities, rather than merely in international transit. In preparation 

for the next summit, some U.S. experts are proposing the development of an international “nuclear 

material security framework agreement [that] would identify the threats to humankind from vulnerable 

fissile and radiological materials...and list actions and commitments required to mitigate them.”133 

Domestically, the NRC has chief responsibility for regulating nuclear security at licensed sites, while

DOE—through the NNSA—focuses on the protection of DOE facilities and materials. In response to the 

terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the NRC and the nuclear utility industry reevaluated physical 

security at the nation's nuclear power plants and required all plant operators to perform specific plant 

design studies, add further security personnel, enhance physical protection features, improve 

emergency preparedness, and provide additional personnel training. Nuclear industry groups and 

federal, state, and local government agencies assisted in the implementation of these measures and 

participated in drills and exercises to test new planning elements.

These new security measures include NRC requirements that licensees identify "mitigative strategies" to 

respond to any event that might cause the loss of large areas of a nuclear plant due to explosions or fire, 

including developing procedures and providing equipment to connect portable coolant pumps and 

power supplies to restore cooling and control functions to reactors and spent fuel pools. The value of 

this type of preparation, and the importance of assuring that the procedures can be implemented 

promptly, has been demonstrated following the natural disaster that severely damaged the Fukushima 

nuclear plant in Japan, where ultimately the connection of portable equipment to inject seawater into 

the reactors stopped the progression of fuel damage.

The NNSA also took several steps after September 11 to protect its critical facilities, including 

strengthening its facilities against attacks by consolidating materials, implementing highly effective low 

and high-tech technologies, hiring additional security officers and improving their training and 

equipment, and improving cybersecurity by establishing new, more secure networks. 

 130 Official U.S. Department of State blog - Secretary Clinton, Foreign Minister Lavrov Sign Plutonium Disposition Protocol, 

posted April 13, 2010 http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/clinton_lavrov_plutonium_disposition_protocol. 131 In 2010, The U.S. returned Russian-origin HEU from Poland, Czech Republic, Serbia, and the Ukraine. GTRI Fact Sheet, 

http://nnsa.energy.gov/mediaroom/factsheets/reducingthreats. 132 GTRI Fact Sheet. 133 “The Urgent Need for a Seoul Declaration: A Roadmap for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit and Beyond,” by Kenneth N. 

Luongo, Arms Control Today, Washington, D.C., April 2012.
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As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the security of nuclear facilities and materials and in light of 

events in Japan, the Subcommittee believes the United States can and should provide leadership on 

improving both nuclear security and nuclear safety standards. Reviews conducted post-Fukushima will 

undoubtedly examine the safety and security benefits that could be achieved by improving 

instrumentation to measure key plant safety parameters, including pool water inventories under 

conditions of station blackout and severe plant damage and strengthening procedures for connecting 

portable pumps and power supplies, as well as the potential benefits of accelerating the transfer of 

spent nuclear fuel out of pools and into dry casks. The Subcommittee urges that such reviews be 

completed expeditiously and that unclassified results be shared with regulators and other appropriate 

entities around the world.

Finally, the Subcommittee finds that is important for the U.S. government to continue to support the 

IAEA’s physical protection programs as well as efforts by the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) 

to promote global best practices regarding nuclear security.

The physical protection of nuclear material and facilities to deter terrorist activity is paramount in 

today’s security environment as the potential theft and sabotage of nuclear materials and facilities 

remains a real threat.134 Furthermore, because the theft of weapons usable material or any sabotage or 

terrorist attack that resulted in a large radioactive release anywhere in the world could create real 

domestic consequences here in the U.S., our nation has a direct interest in incentivizing and enabling all 

nations to take seriously their national obligations to secure nuclear materials and facilities.

5.4 Key Findings

(1) A major international effort, encompassing international organizations, regulators, vendors, 

facility operators, and technical support organizations, should be launched so as to enable the 

safe application of nuclear energy systems and the safe management of nuclear wastes in all 

countries that pursue this technology.

(2) The establishment of multinational or regional fuel cycle facilities under comprehensive IAEA 

safeguards could be a very positive development, giving countries an option to enjoy more 

reliable access to the benefits of nuclear power while simultaneously reducing proliferation 

risks. Similarly, the availability of used fuel take-away would increase substantially the 

incentives for some emerging nuclear nations to forgo the indigenous development of 

enrichment and reprocessing facilities in return for access to regional or international facilities

although we note that the ability to provide this service may depend on progress in the U.S. 

domestic waste storage and disposal program. 

(3) The successful theft of nuclear material anywhere in the world or any sabotage of a nuclear 

facility that resulted in a large radiological release could have substantial domestic impacts in 

the United States. In this context, U.S. leadership to enhance the global capacity to prevent, 

detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism merits continuing effort and investment.

 134 According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1,773 confirmed incidents of illegal possession, movement or 

attempts to illegally trade in or use nuclear material or radioactive sources occurred between January 1993 and December 

2009. Information taken from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Illicit Trafficking Database; see: http://wwwns.iaea.org/security/itdb.asp.
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6. CONCLUSION

Fifty years after it was launched using technologies originally developed for weapons applications, the 

civilian nuclear power industry has grown to play a substantial role in the nation’s and the world’s 

energy supply mix: nuclear power plants today account for roughly 20 percent of U.S. electricity 

production and 14 percent of global electricity production. The United States has long been at the 

forefront of nuclear energy technology development and of international efforts to address nuclearrelated safety, security, and weapons proliferation concerns.

The Subcommittee believes it is in our nation’s interest to retain this leadership role. Regardless of 

one’s view of the nuclear industry’s near- and longer-term prospects more generally, several 

observations argue for making the financial, institutional, and diplomatic commitments needed to 

remain proactively engaged with this technology. One is that there are countries that are planning to 

increase their nuclear energy investments—in some cases substantially—while other countries that 

currently lack nuclear energy infrastructure are interested in developing it. A second is that compelling 

arguments can be made for preserving the nuclear technology option in light of the energy security and 

environmental challenges humanity confronts over the next century, especially if intensifying climate 

concerns emerge as major driver of international and domestic energy policy. Finally, given the 

extensive body of nuclear expertise, facilities, and materials that already exists around the world, 

ensuring that these assets and materials, along with the safety, security and proliferation risks they 

present, are being managed responsibly will remain a national and international imperative for the 

foreseeable future. 

Having reviewed different reactor and fuel cycle technologies and DOE’s current R&D program, the 

Subcommittee concluded that advanced nuclear technologies hold sufficient promise for helping to 

address broadly held safety, security, and sustainability objectives to warrant continued federal 

investment in RD&D to advance these technologies. “Game-changing” technology developments that 

could advance multiple objectives simultaneously, in particular, have the potential to deliver substantial 

long-term returns on public investment and should be the focus of sustained, strategically targeted, and 

well-coordinated federal RD&D efforts. Given that many of these advanced technologies will take years 

to develop, however, we believe it is also appropriate to focus attention on nearer-term improvements 

that could enhance the performance and safety of currently available technologies, specifically the LWR

and once-through fuel systems that dominate the current fleet as well as the capacity expansions 

planned over the next two decades in different parts of the world. In the aftermath of Fukushima, in 

particular, renewed attention to safety issues is appropriate and to be expected. 

We are aware that past assessments tend to find that the federal government is under-investing—both 

in energy RD&D generally and in nuclear energy RD&D specifically—relative to the magnitude and 

importance of the societal benefits that could be obtained by improving our technology options in these 

areas. And while we are also aware that calls for increased funding cannot be made lightly in the 

current, highly constrained political and fiscal environment, the majority of Subcommittee members 

supports the recent MIT recommendation that federal spending on nuclear energy RD&D be roughly 
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doubled, to $1 billion per year (compared to budgets on the order of $500 million in recent years). 

Regardless of future funding levels, the Subcommittee believes it is also useful to focus on improving the 

effectiveness of the federal RD&D program and on leveraging additional private and other non-federal 

resources. 

Another important question for the Subcommittee, and one that is directly relevant to the main charge 

before the BRC as a whole, was whether any known or anticipated advances in nuclear technologies 

could fundamentally alter the waste management challenge the United States confronts over the next 

few decades. We concluded that the answer to this question was no. In other words, we see no 

technological development or change that would obviate the need for deep geologic disposal and 

extended spent fuel storage, or weaken the case for moving forward as expeditiously as possible 

consistent with conducting the necessary public dialogue, and having appropriate management and 

regulatory structures in place. We believe this conclusion follows from any realistic assessment of the 

nature and quantity of high-level waste and spent fuel that must be managed and of the time required 

to successfully develop, commercialize, and deploy new nuclear energy systems. Nor does this 

conclusion depend how one views the desirability or feasibility of ultimately closing the fuel cycle. 

Different countries have approached the decision about whether to pursue a closed vs. open fuel cycle 

with different sets of priorities; the Subcommittee, for its part, did not reach consensus on this point. In 

our view it would be premature for the United States to commit to any particular fuel cycle option as a 

matter of government policy at this time, especially in light of the large uncertainties that surround 

many of the component technologies. Rather, we believe the appropriate emphasis for the U.S. 

program should be on preserving options that have high potential to deliver benefits across multiple 

evaluative criteria (safety, cost, resource utilization, nonproliferation, etc.). 

The final set of issues we considered encompassed safety, security, and nonproliferation—all issues with 

important international and institutional as well as technological dimensions. U.S. leadership to address 

these concerns is needed, not only because the viability of nuclear technology as a future energy supply 

option depends on it, but also because the public’s health and safety and the nation’s vital security 

interests are at stake. No simple prescription or purely technological solution exists for tackling these 

inherently complex and interconnected issues, nor is it likely that any system can be made 100percent

safe, secure, and proliferation-resistant. Nonetheless, Subcommittee members are confident that 

substantial progress can be made by leveraging existing institutional assets; strengthening multi-lateral 

agreements; pursuing the development of secure multinational fuel cycle facilities and spent fuel takeaway arrangements, where appropriate and in our national security interests; and working proactively 

with all parties, including the public, the nuclear industry and the vast majority of other countries who 

share our strong interest in the safe, secure, and peaceful application of nuclear technology.