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New Nuclear Policy-Planning Council

Costings for Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel

The following tables and diagrams are taken from calculations of cost comparisons for four scenarios for dealing with spent nuclear fuel. The costings were made by the New Nuclear Policy-Planning Council Secretariat. The New Nuclear Policy-Planning Council was established within the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan to consider the new Long-Term Nuclear Program. It has been holding deliberations since June 2004 and handed down an interim report dealing with Japan's reprocessing policy on 12 November 2004.

Table 1: Major Parameters

Table 2a is for cases where the canisters are buried vertically. These cases were used in the costing of the four scenarios.

Table 2b is for cases where the canisters are buried horizontally. These cases were not used in the costing of the four scenarios.

Table 3: Area of Disposal Site and Cost of Disposal

Table 4: Disposal Schedule

Table 5: Unit Cost of Management and Disposal

Table 6: Results of Calculation of Cost of Fuel Cycle

(Note 1: Due to rounding to the first decimal place, in some places the totals (subtotals) in these tables don't add up.
Note 2: In this calculation of the cost of disposal of spent fuel, several uncertainties are not taken into account. It is therefore appropriate to assume that the actual range of uncertainty in costs is greater than that shown in these calculations.)

Diagram 1: costs arising year by year for burial in hard rock

Diagram 2: costs arising year by year for burial in soft rock

Table 1: Major Parameters

Total quantity disposed of	32,000 tons
Total quantity disposed of	800 (tons/year for 40 years)
Average burn-up of spent fuel	45,000 MWd/t
Disposal container	19cm thick carbon steel
Number of spent fuel assemblies per container	4 assemblies or 2 assemblies (based on PWR)
Disposal depth	soft rock 500m (with supports)
Disposal depth	hard rock 1000m (without supports)
Bentonite thickness	70 cm
Disposal container surface temperature	less than or equal to 90⁰C
Ground surface temperature	15⁰C
Rate of ground temperature increase	+3⁰C/100m

Table 2a: Case by Case Calculation of Cost of (Vertical) Disposal of Spent Fuel (figures in billion yen)

Cost Headings	Soft Rock			Hard Rock
	Case 1	Case 2	Case 3	Case 1	Case 2
	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically	4 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically at 2 sites	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically at 2 sites
Technological Development	214.3	214.3	214.3	213.8	213.8
Survey and Site Acquisition	240.3	224.7	284.8	247.9	299.3
Design and Construction	3,499.1	2,500.8	4,054.6	1,556.2	2,192
Above Ground Facilities Below Ground Facilities Above Ground Equipment Below Ground Equipment Other	134.9 2,730.3 453.3 137.8 42.9	111.1 1,813.1 417.7 116.1 42.9	156.5 2,983.8 623.2 212.8 78.4	99.8 589.6 504.3 319.6 42.9	118.9 668.1 728.1 598.4 78.4
Operations	1,966.7	1,486.2	2,247.2	1,803.7	2,257.9
Closing and Dismantling	215.6	243	365.4	241.2	360
Monitoring	119	119	237.9	119	237.9
Project Management	1,176.2	979.9	1,653.4	919.4	1,469.7
Consumption Tax	333.1	257.9	405	227.6	312.8
Subtotal	7,800.4	6,025.9	9,462.8	5,328.7	7,343.5
Tax for handling of spent fuel materials etc.	761.6	761.6	761.6	761.6	761.6
Total	8,562	6,787.5	10,224.4	6,090.3	8,101.1

Table 2b: Supplementary Case by Case Calculation of Cost of (Horizontal) Disposal of Spent Fuel (figures in billion yen)

Cost Headings	Soft Rock		Hard Rock
	Supplementary Case 1	Supplementary Case 2	Supplementary Case 1
	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried horizontally	4 fuel assemblies per canister, buried horizontally	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried horizontally
Technological Development	214.3	214.3	213.8
Survey and Site Acquisition	199.6	224	244.6
Design and Construction	1,114.9	1,041.8	1,148.3
Above Ground Facilities Below Ground Facilities Above Ground Equipment Below Ground Equipment Other	74.9 325.9 435.8 235.4 42.9	73.3 320.9 407.1 197.6 42.9	73.8 120.7 486.3 424.6 42.9
Operations	1,385.8	1,150.5	1,555.9
Closing and Dismantling	201.7	203.8	219.3
Monitoring	119	119	119
Project Management	672.9	715.8	848.7
Consumption Tax	180.3	166.2	193.6
Subtotal	4,088.6	3,835.4	4,543
Tax for handling of spent fuel materials etc.	761.6	761.6	761.6
Total	4,850.2	4,597	5,304.6

Table 3: Area of Disposal Site and Cost of Disposal

Area and Cost Headings	Soft Rock	Hard Rock
Area and Cost Headings	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically (2 sites)	2 fuel assemblies per canister, buried vertically
Area of disposal site (km²)	18.8	11.5
Total length of main shafts (km)	88	43
Total length of disposal shafts (km)	290	216
Total cost (billion yen)	9,462.8	5,328.7
Cost with 2% discount rate (billion yen)	7,507.5	4,226.8
Unit cost with 2% discount rate (million yen/ton)	336	189

Table 4: Disposal Schedule

Time of commencing disposal	35 years after establishment of implementing organization
Time of completing disposal	100 years after commencing disposal
Period for monitoring after completion	300 years after closing disposal site

Table 5: Unit Cost of Management and Disposal (2% discount rate)
Total period of operation (units: million yen/ton)

Cost Headings	Reprocessing Case	Direct Disposal Case
Transport of spent fuel to reprocessing plant	18	-
Reprocessing	253	-
Transport of spent fuel to interim storage facility	16	16
Interim storage	54	54
Storage of high level waste (HLW)	24	-
Transport of HLW	3	-
(Disposal of HLW) or direct disposal of spent fuel	(0.12 yen/kWh)	189 - 336
Management and storage of TRU waste	25	-
Diposal of TRU waste (by deep geological disposal)	29	-
Diposal of TRU waste (by means other than deep geological disposal)	10	-
Fabrication of MOX fuel	259	-
Decommissioning of reprocessing plant	27	-

Table 6: Results of Calculation of Cost of Fuel Cycle (yen/kWh)

Cost Headings		Scenario 1	Scenario 2	Scenario 3	Scenario 4
Front End	Uranium fuel	0.57	0.57	0.61	0.61
Front End	MOX fuel	0.07	0.05	-	0.00
Back End	Reprocessing	0.63	0.42	-	0.16
	HLW storage, transport and disposal	0.16	0.10	-	0.06
	TRU waste management, storage and disposal	0.11	0.07	-	0.03
	Intermediate storage of spent fuel	0.04	0.06	0.14	0.13
	Direct disposal of spent fuel	-	0.12 - 0.21	0.19 - 0.32	0.09 - 0.16
Total		1.60	1.4 - 1.5	0.9 - 1.1	1.1 - 1.2
Electricity generation cost		5.20	5.0 - 5.1	4.5 - 4.7	4.7 - 4.8

Diagram 1: costs arising year by year for burial in hard rock

Diagram 2: costs arising year by year for burial in soft rock

Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation of four scenarios

Interim Report

Previously published costs of the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle

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