International Status and Trends for Spent Fuel Management

Spent fuel management encompasses all the activities associated with handling, transport, storage, processing and disposal of spent nuclear fuel following its discharge from the reactor. The first part of this paper describes the various approaches to the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The second part reports data on the amount of spent fuel discharges from nuclear power reactors and compares these with the available reprocessing capacities. The difference between the two values is the minimum amount of fuel to be stored. Various types of interim storage facilities are described together with a summary table for the away from reactor fuel storage capacities. A separate table for the spent fuel inventory in the former CMEA countries and in the Republics of the former Soviet Union is provided. Activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency related to management of spent fuel from power plants and reactors, including the development of international safety guidelines and the initiation of the Irradiated Fuel Management Advisory Program, are described.