Institutional models for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle

Abstract

As recent developments in the international energy situation have shown, the necessity of utilizing all available sources of energy all over the world has become inevitable. This also necessitates increased application of nuclear energy in the industrialized countries and similarly to an increasing extent in the developing countries. However, the many and varied problems of ecology, economy and public acceptance associated with the peaceful uses of nuclear energy require intensive support and close cooperation in the transfer ofnuclear technology from industrialized to developing countries. In addition to cooperation in the R + D sector, the major priority in nuclear transfer between the developing countries and the industrialized countries was to be found in the past in supplying enriched fuel and reactors. The problern of the management of spent fuel from nuclear power stations and its practical solution will in future also increasingly arise in the developing countries with the growing amounts of spent fuel elements. It therefore appears meaningful to include the issue of managing the back end of the fuel cycle in negotiating the boundary conditions of a nuclear transfer from the supplier states to the recipient states, possibly directly connected e. g. with the expert of nuclear power stations. [.]