Self-consistent model of nuclear power and nuclear fuel cycle

Under discussion are such major aspects of the nuclear energy sector as cost effectiveness, nuclear and environmental safety of reactors and nuclear fuel cycle facilities, sustained fuel supply, and proven feasibility of a proliferation-resistant technology. These requirements can be met, for instance, by a two-circuit nuclear facility with an inherently safe fast reactor of the BREST type which is expected to produce electricity at a cost not higher than that at modern LWRs. Fuel supply to such facilities and to a relatively small number of thermal reactors with BR< 1, could be provided by fast reactors using depleted uranium as makeup fuel and having a small breeding gain in the core (CBR ~ 1.05) and bottom blanket (full BR ~ 1.1). Use of a high-boiling metallic coolant (lead) affords deterministic nuclear, technical and environmental safety of the plants in design-basis and hypothetical accidents. Introduction of a transmutational NFC is viewed as one of the avenues to global environmental safety, when the equivalent activity of long-lived high-level waste is made lower or close to the activity of the source material going into energy production. With such a balance in place, nuclear power could be regarded, in a sense, as waste-free.