(A) study on assessment of the effectiveness of fast reactor system for enhancing the national energy security in the electricity sector

Abstract

Energy security, in 21st century, draws a most noticeable attention in most countries worldwide because the national sustainable development and security depend largely on the level of the energy security. Lack of national conventional energy resources and instability of the energy supply market become a driving element for many countries to consider the nuclear energy as the essential instrument for enhancing the national energy security. In this study, indicators for measuring the level of energy security in the electric power sector were developed. These indicators were then used to assess the effectiveness of fast reactor system for enhancing the national energy security with respect to a diversification of the energy markets and a vulnerability to the economic disruption. This study examined the four schemes of the electric power system deploying different nuclear fuel cycle technologies in Korean electricity sector. As the results, the closed fuel cycle schemes are turned out to be a fuel cycle scheme having better contributions to the diversification of the fuel supply than the once-through fuel cycle scheme. The study further shows that the completely closed fuel cycle with the spent fuel recycling in fast reactors enhances the national energy security to the maximum extent compared to all other fuel cycle schemes considered in the study. Since the completely closed fuel cycle technology with fast reactor system is hardly affected by the uranium price changes, this scheme is evaluated as the most favorable scheme with respect to ensuring the stable profit of utilities and contributing to the stabilization of the electricity tariff. However, the study implies that to choose “scheme c”(TRU burning in fast reactors) could contribute more to the improvement of electric power system stability than to choose “scheme b”(partial recycle of Pu in thermal reactors) in terms of near-term fuel cycle policy establishment. The indicators developed in this study can b...