The purpose of this study is to investigate the relevance of U5-FRs in a nuclear fleet deployment configuration. Considering several power demand scenarios and assuming different finite quantities of available natural uranium, this paper examines what types of reactors must be deployed to meet the demand. | Deployable nuclear fleet based on available quantities of uranium and reactor types the case of fast reactors started up with enriched uranium EPJ Nuclear Sci. Technol. 2 12 2016 Nuclear Sciences A. Baschwitz et al. published by EDP Sciences 2016 amp Technologies DOI epjn e2016-50073-8 Available online at http REGULAR ARTICLE Deployable nuclear fleet based on available quantities of uranium and reactor types the case of fast reactors started up with enriched uranium Anne Baschwitz Gilles Mathonnière Sophie Gabriel and Tommy Eleouet CEA DEN DANS I-tésé 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette France Received 19 October 2015 Received in final form 11 January 2016 Accepted 19 January 2016 Published online 18 March 2016 Abstract. International organizations regularly produce global energy demand scenarios. To account for the increasing population and GDP trends as well as to encompass evolving energy uses while satisfying constraints on greenhouse gas emissions long-term installed nuclear power capacity scenarios tend to be more ambitious even after the Fukushima accident. Thus the amounts of uranium or plutonium needed to deploy such capacities could be limiting factors. This study first considers light-water reactors LWR GEN III using enriched uranium like most of the current reactor technologies. It then examines the contribution of future fast reactors FR GEN IV operating with an initial fissile load and then using depleted uranium and recycling their own plutonium. However as plutonium is only available in limited quantity since it is only produced in nuclear reactors the possibility of starting up these Generation IV reactors with a fissile load of enriched uranium is also explored. In one of our previous studies the uranium consumption of a third-generation reactor like an EPRTM was compared with that of a fast reactor started up with enriched uranium U5-FR . For a reactor lifespan of 60 years the U5- FR consumes three times less uranium than the EPR and .
