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Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Radiochemistry
 Background
Reliable non-carbon energy is vital to the economic well-being of the United States. The only reliable source of energy is nuclear. The most significant issue with nuclear is nuclear waste. Within current status quo, Yucca Mountain will only be able to deal with a fraction of the entire inventory of commercial nuclear waste that exists in the U.S. today. To this end, it is critical that the U.S. move from a once through fuel cycle to a new approach that includes recycling of spent nuclear fuel. This capability would deploy advanced technologies to increase proliferation resistance, recover and reuse fuel. In short, at the very heart of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is the practical application of radiochemistry in solving the most critical need in the equation - How to effectively deal with the issue of nuclear waste.
The Radiochemistry Society is proud to present a special series of lectures designed to highlight the critical importance that radiochemistry will play in GNEP.
Key Concepts
This important 4 day event will focus on an in-depth view of: new nuclear fuel concepts & advanced reactor design; actinide & fission product separations and waste processing.
Less than 10 percent of the enriched uranium is consumed in the first pass through a reactor. Additionally, fission product waste makes up less than 5 percent of the used fuel. It is the buildup of fission products that inhibits the nuclear fission reaction, thus requiring the used fuel to be removed from the reactor.
Under GNEP, recycling would comprise of radiometric separations that would accomplish the following:
- Separate uranium from the spent fuel at a very high level of purification that would allow it to be recycled for re-enrichment, stored in an unshielded facility or diverted to low-level waste.
- Separate and immobilize long-lived fission products such as technetium and iodine, for disposal in Yucca Mountain.
- Extract short-lived fission products, cesium and strontium, and prepare them for decay storage until they meet the requirements for disposal as low-level waste.
- Separate transuranic elements from the remaining fission products so they could be fabricated into fuels for an Advanced Burner Reactor, or a fast reactor. Fast reactors would consume the transuranics, eliminating the need for their disposal in Yucca Mountain. This approach could potentially increase the effective capacity of the geologic repository by an estimated factor of 50 to 100.
How You'll Benefit from This Course
In this course you will:
- Consult with seasoned experts on GNEP separation problems and challenges
- Develop a deeper knowledge of actinide chemistry needed for decision making in the GNEP arena.
- Develop a better understanding of Advanced Fuel and Reactor Designs.
- Receive references to deepen your understanding of nuclear physics and radiochemistry needed to support GNEP.
- Learn about concepts being applied in other countries.
Proposed Agenda *All courses are taught from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm each day
- Day 1 - Nonproliferation & New Fuel Concepts
- Day 2 - Fast & Advanced Reactor Designs
- Day 3 - Actinide Separation & MOX Fabrications
- Day 4 - Waste Processing & the Global Partnership
* This course is available for Group Training only.
Please click the button above for group training requests.
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