Impact of P&T on Waste Mgt. And Geological Disposal Impact of ADS on Waste Mgt. H. Aït Abderrahim SCK-CEN Boeretang 200, B-2400 Mol, Belgium

Background (1) During the 4 plenary sessions of yesterday of this EURADWASTE04 Conference, I picked the following ideas and facts: In Europe : 35% of our electricity with 163 nuclear reactors (PWR, BWR and VVER since the new enlargement) Nuclear energy : only reliable energy resource in EU able to ensure our energy independence New reactors are going to be build (of 3 rd generation in first instance) with life time of 60 years, then we are going with LWR reactor technology up Thus same type of Waste as todays produced ones The burden of nuclear energy is the HLW Mgt. We have a technical solution (geological disposal) but looks rather difficult to implement due to public opposition (see the example of Windscale, Gorleben)

Background (2) Public concerns should be understood and taken care of. Opposition of public is due to ignorance of the reality of the problem but also to inappropriate answers (sometimes too technical whereas people are even not knowing what are we doing with the waste) AQG complementary research addressing the HLW mgt. Issue On the other hand we here also: We hope to see the Gen IV reactors coming in service around 2030~2050, producing last waste but are not foreseen for the moment to deal with presently produced waste

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt? LWR-UO2 50GWd/tHM ProductKg/tHM% isotopic composition U U 235 U 99%1% Pu Pu 239 Pu 240 Pu 241 Pu 242 Pu 3.5%51.9% 23.8% 12.9% 7.9% Np Np 100% Am Am 243 Am 58.1% 41.7% Cm Cm 244 Cm 8.8% 91.2% FPs50.7LLFP* 3.44 kg/tHM *( 99 Tc:1.2 ; 93 Zr:1.05 ; 135 Cs:0.59 ; 107 Pd:0.34 ; 129 I:0.26)

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt? Yes, Partitioning can impact the HLW management by : limiting the quantities to deal with (MA, LLFP) eventually Pu if not considered as it should be namely a resource. Separating the isotopes more contributing to the thermal source in the waste (Sr, Cs,..) What about Transmutation ?

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt?

Yes, in theory and equally as good in FR as in ADS systems So why to go ADS ? BTW what is ADS ? (cfr. B. Barré « people do not know what are we talking about)

ADS : Accelerator Driven System

Why ADS for HLW transmutation? Proton Accelerator Subcritical Neutron Multiplier Spallation Source p n ADS systems are presently studied for nuclear waste transmutation because of the (delayed neutron fraction which let the reactor control): 235 U 650 pcm 238 U 1480 pcm 238 Pu 120 pcm 239 Pu 210 pcm 240 Pu 270 pcm 241 Pu 490 pcm 242 Pu 573 pcm 237 Np 334 pcm 241 Am 113 pcm 243 Am 208 pcm 242 Cm 33 pcm 244 Cm 100 pcm Therefore if one wants to load large quantities of MAs in the Waste burner it should be a subcritical machine

Is ADS a dream of crazy scientists? I hope that the technical presentations of this morning convinced you that ADS development is going on at serious level with partners from: European Nuclear research centres, European nuclear industry More then 30 European Universities I invite to discuss with the colleagues presenting the details of this programme in the Poster session. What about future ?

NUWASTE : Transmutation of high- level nuclear waste in an ADS Objectives:Evaluation of the industrial practicability of trans-mutation of high-level nuclear waste in an ADS and development of the basic knowledge and technologies needed. Scope: System analysis for an accelerator driven system (ADS) including more advanced integrated design, cost evaluation of the whole system and safety and licensing issues. Development of the basic knowledge and technologies required for: Improving reliability of high energy accelerators for ADS applications coupling of ADS components (accelerator, spallation target & sub-critical core) material and coolant technologies advanced fuels and targets basic nuclear data FP6 2 nd Call of the EC for WP04

Our community view to respond this call is: IP EUROTRANS

Our recommendation to the EC Even todays effort of the FP6 is appreciated (factor 2 for the Waste mgt. programme FP5/FP6), we hope to see : a larger increase of this support, The stimulation towards the realisation of a large scale experimental demonstration of ADS