An economic analysis of reactor synergy: Transmuting light water reactor produced americium in heavy water moderated reactors

• Americium from spent LWR fuel can be burned in HWRs fueled with RU.
• We analyze the economics for a utility with LWRs to burn Am and RU in HWRs.
• The averted disposal cost must exceed $200/kg spent fuel for this to be beneficial.
• This result is most sensitive to the cost of separating Am from spent LWR fuel.
• A rise in the cost of NU would worsen the economic acceptability of this scheme.

An economic analysis is presented of a proposed synergy between two nuclear utilities, Utility L that owns light water reactors (LWR) and Utility H that owns heavy water moderated reactors (HWR). Americium is partitioned from LWR spent fuel produced by Utility L and then transmuted in HWRs operated by Utility H. Additionally, reprocessed uranium (RU) from spent LWR fuel is used as fuel for the HWRs to transmute the americium. The analysis is based on the estimated value of RU to Utility L if it is re-enriched using centrifuges and used as LWR fuel, and the estimated cost to Utility L of partitioning americium from spent LWR fuel. In order for this scenario to be economically acceptable to Utility L, the averted disposal cost due to partitioning americium from LWR spent fuel most likely must exceed $230/kg heavy metals in spent nuclear fuel. A sensitivity analysis shows that the cost of partitioning americium from spent LWR fuel has the greatest effect on this value, followed by the cost of natural uranium. During steady state operations, a single HWR should be able to transmute all of the Am-241 from approximately five LWRs using RU from just those reactors as fuel.