Aug 25, 2013

Fuel Cycle Costs for the major types of nuclear reactors

David Le Blanc's extra slides for his Molten Salt reactor talk had breakdowns of the fuel cycle costs for each of the major types of nuclear reactors.

LWR (Light Water Reactor) Fuel Cycle Costs
All assume 100$/kg Uranium and 150$/kg SWU (enrichment)
• Light Water Reactor(per Gwe)
• 20M$ Uranium(200 Tonnes, 100$/kg)
• 20M$ Enrichment
• 10M$ Fuel Fabrication
• Annual Fuel Cost 0.6 cents/kwh
• But must pay off initial fuel load
– 3 to 5 Tonnes U235 + Fabrication
– ~200M$ = 0.26 c/kwh (10% Discount Rate)
• Total Fuel Cycle ~ 0.86 cents/kwh

Size of Heat Exchangers for different types of nuclear reactors
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