Regular Article

Cross check of the new economic and mass balance features of the fuel cycle scenario code TR_EVOL

CIEMAT – Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas, Av. Complutense 40, Ed. 17, 28040 Madrid, Spain

^⁎ e-mail: francisco.alvarez@ciemat.es

Received: 10 February 2016
Received in final form: 21 June 2016
Accepted: 4 July 2016
Published online: 5 September 2016

Abstract

Versatile computational tools with up to date capabilities are needed to assess current nuclear fuel cycles or the transition from the current status of the fuel cycle to the more advanced and sustainable ones. This work is intended to cross check the new capabilities of the fuel cycle scenario code TR_EVOL. This process has been divided in two stages. The first stage is dedicated to check the improvements in the nuclear fuel mass balance estimation using the available data for the Spanish nuclear fuel cycle. The second stage has been focused in verifying the validity of the TR_EVOL economic module, comparing results to data published by the ARCAS EU project. A specific analysis was required to evaluate the back-end cost. Data published by the waste management responsible institutions was used for the validation of the methodology. Results were highly satisfactory for both stages. In particular, the economic assessment provides a difference smaller than 3% regarding results published by the ARCAS project (NRG estimations). Furthermore, concerning the back-end cost, results are highly acceptable (7% difference for a final disposal in a once-through scenario and around 11% for a final disposal in a reprocessing strategy) given the significant uncertainties involved in design concepts and related unit costs.