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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
H. P. Nawada, N. P. Bhat, G. R. Balasubramanian
Nuclear Technology | Volume 114 | Number 1 | April 1996 | Pages 97-110
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To compare and evaluate various fuel cycle options for a 500-MW(electric) fast breeder reactor, the electrorefining process has been examined for reprocessing spent fuel. Making use of an improved thermochemical model, optimum process conditions for electrorefining have been worked out. These conditions are the following: capacity of the electrorefining cell, number of cells, batch size, feed adjustments, sequential operations for recovery of uranium and co-recovery of uranium and plutonium, number of cycles, and timeframe to meet the refueling schedule. The spent fuel is envisaged to undergo reprocessing in three campaigns: (a) the inner core campaign, (b) the outer core campaign, and (c) the blanket and the leftover campaign. Feed adjustments are done by mixing either the spent inner core or the outer core fuels with the blankets. Three product streams with required fuel composition for direct refabrication of the inner core, the outer core, and the blanket fuel subassemblies, respectively, are obtained by certain sequential electrorefining operations. These calculations made for a mixed-oxide fuel core can be easily extended to the metallic core.