Nuclear Fuel Supply Calculator - HELP
(last updated 15 Feb 2016)
Contents:
This calculator performs calculations of nuclear fuel supply from the following primary and secondary sources:
- natural uranium (Unat) extracted from ore deposits,
- stock holdings of natural uranium and Low Enriched Uranium (LEU),
- uranium re-enriched from depleted uranium (DU),
- uranium recycled from spent fuel (RepU),
- plutonium (Pu) recycled from spent fuel, or surplus nuclear weapons, for use in MOX fuel, and
- uranium blended down from High Enriched Uranium (HEU).
The calculator allows to study the following aspects, among others:
- comparison of supply and demand for various scenarios,
- usage and lifespan of the available primary and secondary resources and stock holdings,
- usage of the available production capacities in the various stages of nuclear fuel production,
- side effects of nuclear fuel use from secondary sources (e.g. material use and enrichment work required for blendstock production, etc.),
- arisings of depleted uranium (DU) tails during the various enrichment processes,
- effects of parameter variations, such as tails assays, burnups, etc.
The calculator uses the following assumptions:
- The fuel is made for use in Light Water Reactors (LWR), such as Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) or Boiling Water Reactors (BWR), and in Heavy Water Reactors (HWR).
- Natural uranium (Unat) is directly used for HWR fuel production, or, for LWR use, is converted to uranium hexafluoride (UF6), then enriched to Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), and processed into uranium oxide fuel.
- Recycled uranium (RepU) is re-enriched to its initial enrichment equivalent, the corresponding actual enrichment of which is higher to compensate for the presence of the neutron absorber U-236.
- Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) is produced from plutonium (with a given concentration of fissile plutonium, i.e. Pu-239 and Pu-241) and natural, depleted, or slightly enriched uranium. The uranium component may be produced by enrichment of natural uranium or re-enrichment of depleted uranium; any enrichment of the uranium component is taken into account.
- High Enriched Uranium (HEU) is blended down to Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), using a blendstock of natural, depleted, or slightly enriched uranium. The blendstock may be produced by enrichment of natural uranium or re-enrichment of depleted uranium; any enrichment of the blendstock is taken into account. The blending is performed with the chemical form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). In the case of the presence of U-236 in the HEU feed, the U-235 assay of the blended material is raised to compensate for the neutron absorbing effect of U-236. (For details of the downblending process, see the Uranium Downblending Calculator)
The calculator makes the following simplifications:
- it uses generic data for the fuel facilities and for each reactor type, rather than reflecting the parameter spectrum of the existing facilities and plants in the world,
- it uses generic assays specific for each type of product or by-product,
- it makes no account for any future discoveries of new uranium ore deposits, nor any replenishment of stock holdings of Unat, LEU, or HEU.
Upon clicking of the "Calculate" button, after a short delay, the Result information is presented in numerical form and as a chart.
The data used for the calculation can be entered in the Input Data tables. The parameters used for the calculation can be set in the Parameters tables. Data and parameters show reasonable initial values which can be modified as needed.
See special instructions for offline use of this calculator.
Resources and Inventory ·
Production Capacity ·
Fuel Recycling ·
Supply ·
Demand ·
Output Selections
All data is for the uranium contained in the respective material!
For conversion to actual amounts of material, see Unit Conversion, and the Unit Converter.
t = metric tonne · $ = US-Dollar
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Total amounts of resources in ore deposits and various stock holdings at the beginning of the base year.
- Base Year (Jan. 1)
- Base date for all resources and inventories given in this table. Year entry must be in the range 2000 - 2100.
- Recoverable Uranium Resources in Ore Deposits [t U]
- The Default values are from [NEA Red Book 2010]
- Identified Resources:
- Reasonably Assured Resources (RAR)
- Inferred Resources
- Undiscovered Resources:
- Prognosticated Resources
- Speculative Resources (SR)
- Cost Range
- ≤ 40 $/kgU (15.38 $/lb U3O8)
- ≤ 80 $/kgU (30.77 $/lb U3O8)
- ≤ 130 $/kgU (50 $/lb U3O8)
- ≤ 260 $/kgU (100 $/lb U3O8)
- unassigned
- Stock Inventories
- The assays of the materials are given in the Source Material Parameter table below.
- Unat [t Unat]: natural uranium
- LEU [t LEU]: low enriched uranium
- HEU [t HEU]: high enriched uranium
- DU [t DU]: depleted uranium (various assays)
- RepU [t RepU]: reprocessed uranium (recovered from spent fuel)
- Pu [t Pu]: plutonium
Annual production capability of the uranium mines and mills and the nuclear fuel facilities.
Columns must be filled in consecutively from the left, and
years must be given in ascending order. Year entries must be in the range 2000 - 2100. The data for the first year stated is also used for earlier years, and the data for the last year stated is also used for later years.
For unspecified intermediate years, data is interpolated linearly.
- Mining + Milling [t Unat/a]
- The default data is from [NEA Red Book 2010]
- Conversion [t Unat/a]
- Conversion of U3O8 to UF6
- Enrichment [M SWU/a] (million Separative Work Units per year)
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- HEU Downblending [t HEU/a]
- Blending of High Enriched Uranium (HEU) with some uranium blendstock material to obtain Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) for Light Water Reactor use.
- Fuel Fab. UOX [t LEU/a]
- Fuel fabrication of uranium oxide fuel for Light-Water Reactors
- Fuel Fab. MOX [t HM/a] (t Heavy Metal per year)
- Fuel fabrication of mixed oxide fuel from plutonium and uranium
- Fuel Fab. HWR [t Unat/a]
- Fuel fabrication of heavy water reactor fuel
Material recovered from spent fuel by reprocessing.
Columns must be filled in consecutively from the left, and
years must be given in ascending order. Year entries must be in the range 2000 - 2100. The data for the first year stated is also used for earlier years, and the data for the last year stated is also used for later years.
For unspecified intermediate years, data is interpolated linearly.
- Recovered RepU [t RepU/a]
- Uranium recovered by reprocessing of spent fuel
- Recovered Pu [t Pu/a]
- Plutonium recovered by reprocessing of spent fuel
Annual amounts of material intended for reactor use. Actual usage may differ due to depletion of inventories and side effects of some processes.
Columns must be filled in consecutively from the left, and
years must be given in ascending order. Year entries must be in the range 2000 - 2100. The data for the first year stated is also used for earlier years, and the data for the last year stated is also used for later years.
For unspecified intermediate years, data is interpolated linearly.
- Unat from Mining + Milling [t Unat/a]
- Unat Inventory Drawdown [t Unat/a]
- LEU Inventory Drawdown [t LEU/a]
- HEU Downblending [t HEU/a]
- Tails Re-Enrichment to Unat [t Unat/a]
- Tails Re-Enrichment to LEU [t LEU/a]
- RepU [t Unat_eq/a] (t natural uranium equivalent)
- Pu for MOX use [t Pu/a]
Annual demand, given as natural uranium (equivalent) for reactor use, or as electricity from nuclear generation. Select from Default pick list, or enter own data.
Columns must be filled in consecutively from the left, and
years must be given in ascending order. Year entries must be in the range 2000 - 2100. The data for the first year stated is also used for earlier years, and the data for the last year stated is also used for later years.
For unspecified intermediate years, data is interpolated linearly.
Default data selection:
- NEA Red Book 2010 - Low
- NEA Red Book 2010 - High
- IAEA 2001 - Low
- IAEA 2001 - Middle
- IAEA 2001 - High
- Replace fossil power by 2050 at 3x demand
- Total [t Unat_eq/a · TWhe/a]
- Total annual natural uranium equivalent demand, or electricity demand from nuclear power. Select appropriate unit.
1 TWhe (Terawatt-hour electrical) = 1000 GWhe = 109 kWhe.
- HWR [%]
- Percentage of annual natural uranium equivalent demand, or electricity demand from nuclear power respectively, to be supplied from Heavy Water Reactors.
- Uranium resources category
- Select applicable resource and cost categories to be used for the calculation.
- Resource categories:
- RAR
- RAR + Inferred
- RAR + Inferred + Prognosticated
- RAR + Inferred + Prognosticated + SR
- Cost categories:
- ≤ 40 $/kgU (15.38 $/lb U3O8)
- ≤ 80 $/kgU (30.77 $/lb U3O8)
- ≤ 130 $/kgU (50 $/lb U3O8)
- ≤ 260 $/kgU (100 $/lb U3O8)
- no cost limit
- Supply from Mining + Milling: Use Supply Data / Fit Demand
- If "Fit Demand" is selected, the supply data from mining is adjusted for the total supply to meet the demand. Otherwise, the supply data from mining is taken from the Supply Data table, as all other supply data.
- End year
- Last year for the calculations, must be in the range 2000-2100; affects time span covered by the chart and numerical results.
Chart ·
Numerical Output
The time span covered by the charts is given by the Base Year in the Resources and Inventory Data table and the End Year in the Output Selections table.
For the charts showing results from a single year, the year can be entered directly or modified by the buttons.
A result is calculated when the "Calculate" button is clicked.
Chart options:
- Supply and demand
- Simple line chart of supply and demand
- Supply (detailed w. resource categories)
- Stacked chart of supply only, detailing contribution of the various resources and showing resource categories for the uranium resources
- Supply (detailed w. cost categories)
- Stacked chart of supply only, detailing contribution of the various resources and showing cost categories for the uranium resources
- Supply and demand (detailed w. resource categories)
- Stacked chart of supply and demand, detailing contribution of the various resources and showing resource categories for the uranium resources
- Supply and demand (detailed w. cost categories)
- Stacked chart of supply and demand, detailing contribution of the various resources and showing cost categories for the uranium resources
- Inventories (Unat equiv.)
- Inventories given as natural uranium equivalent, to simplify comparison. The data in original units is available in the Numerical Output selections below.
For the purposes of this chart, it is simplistically assumed that all depleted uranium has the same assay as that specified for enrichment of Unat.
- Inventories without U Res. and DU (Unat equiv.)
- Same as above, but without the major contributors uranium resources in ore deposits and depleted uranium. This allows to view the other inventories in more detail.
- Prod. capacity usage (Unat equiv.) for year selected
- Production capacity usage for the uranium mines and mills and the fuel cycle facilities, detailing the usage by the processing for the various resource types.
The data is given as natural uranium equivalent, to simplify comparison. The data in original units is available in the Numerical Output selections below.
Calculation results
These selections show the numerical results of the calculation in various forms.
The time span of the results is given by the Base Year in the Resources and Inventory Data table and the End Year in the Output Selections table. For the results from a single year, the year can be entered directly or modified by the buttons.
A result is calculated when the "Calculate" button is clicked.
- Supply, production and demand for year selected
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- Resources use for year selected
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- Inventory balance for year selected
-
- Total inventory balance and lifespan
-
- Prod. capacity usage (orig. units) for year selected
-
- Prod. capacity usage (Unat equiv.) for year selected
-
Parameter evaluation
These selections show the effects of the current parameter specifications made in the Parameters tables. They immediately reflect any parameter change in these tables - no clicking of the "Calculate" button is required.
- Assay summary (Part 1 + 2)
-
- Process balances (Part 1 + 2)
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- LEU output per unit input material
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- Input requirements per unit LEU output
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- Unat equivalent per unit input material
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Source Material Parameters
· Process Parameters
Upon entry of any Source Material Parameters, the Parameter Evaluations in the Result Window are updated accordingly.
- Unat: Assay [wt-% U-235]
- The concentration of the fissile uranium isotope U-235 in natural uranium is 0.711 weight-percent
- Re-enriched Unat: Assay [wt-% U-235 equiv.]
- The equivalent assay is identical to the assay in natural uranium. The actual U-235 assay, however, is higher than in Unat, to compensate for the presence of the neutron absorber U-236. The actual assay can be viewed in the Assay Summary in the Result Window.
- LEU stock, Re-enriched LEU: Assay
- Assay given by LWR Power Plant "Burnup · Initial Enrichment" selection below. The actual assays can be viewed in the Assay Summary in the Result Window.
- HEU: HEU assay: [wt-% U-235] · [wt-% U-236]
- Concentrations of U-235 and U-236 in weight-percent in the HEU material.
- HEU: Raw Blendstock (RB) assay [wt-% U-235]
- Concentration of U-235 in weight-percent in the Raw Blendstock material, before any enrichment.
- HEU: Raw Blendstock (RB) supplied as U3O8 / UF6
- (in case of Raw Blendstock uranium being supplied as UF6, no conversion is needed)
- HEU: Final Blendstock (FB) assay [wt-% U-235]
- Concentration of U-235 in weight-percent in the Final Blendstock material, after any enrichment. If an assay higher than the Raw Blendstock is entered, an enrichment step is assumed for the Blendstock. If an assay lower than the Raw Blendstock assay is entered, the latter is used instead for the calculation.
- RepU: Assay
- Assay given by LWR Power Plant "Burnup · Initial Enrichment" selection below, can be viewed in Assay Summary (Result Window)
- MOX: Raw U component assay [wt-% U235]
- enter appropriate assay in case of use of depleted uranium, or leave initial value of 0.711 unchanged for natural uranium. In case of depleted uranium, it is assumed that it is a by-product from enrichment of natural uranium.
- MOX: Raw U component supplied as U3O8 / UF6
- (in case of depleted uranium being used for MOX production, no conversion is needed, since this is available as UF6 already)
- MOX: Final U component assay [wt-% U235]
- Concentration of U-235 in weight-percent in the Final uranium component material, after any enrichment. If an assay higher than the Raw uranium component is entered, an enrichment step is assumed for the uranium component. If an assay lower than the Raw uranium component assay is entered, the latter is used instead for the calculation.
- MOX: Puf concentration in total Pu [wt-%]
- concentration of fissile plutonium (Pu-239 and Pu-241) in the plutonium used for MOX fuel.
- MOX: Puf equivalent of U-235 [g Puf per g U-235]
- amount of fissile plutonium (Pu-239 and Pu-241) which produces the same energy in the reactor as 1 g of uranium-235.
- General: Factor for U-236 effect [excess wt-% U-235 per wt-% U-236]
- Excess concentration of U-235 needed to compensate for the effect of U-236 present in the LEU product.
Typical values are in the 0.2 - 0.3 range, depending on reactor and fuel type.
Upon entry of any Process Parameters, the Parameter Evaluations in the Result Window are updated accordingly.
- Conversion to UF6: Losses [%]
- Production losses during the conversion process.
- Enrichment (Unat, RepU to LEU): Tails Assay [wt-% U-235]
- Weight-percent of the isotope uranium-235 in the uranium contained in the waste stream (depleted uranium hexafluoride) of the enrichment plant. Typical values range between 0.25% and 0.30%. The tails assay can be selected according to economic feasibility.
> See graphs: Cost balance of uranium enrichment 
· Optimal tails assay
> See also: Uranium Enrichment Cost Optimizer
- HEU Blendstock Enrichment: Tails Assay [wt-% U-235]
- Weight-percent of the isotope uranium-235 in the uranium contained in the waste stream (depleted uranium hexafluoride) of the enrichment plant producing the blendstock for HEU downblending.
- MOX U Component Enrichment: Tails Assay [wt-% U-235]
- Weight-percent of the isotope uranium-235 in the uranium contained in the waste stream (depleted uranium hexafluoride) of the enrichment plant producing the uranium component for the MOX fuel.
- Re-enrichment of Tails (to Unat, LEU): Tails Assay [wt-% U-235]
- Weight-percent of the isotope uranium-235 in the uranium contained in the waste stream (depleted uranium hexafluoride) of the enrichment plant.
- Fuel Fabrication (UOX, MOX, HWR): Losses [%]
- Production losses during the fuel fabrication process.
- LWR Power Plant: Burnup and initial enrichment
- The burnup is the thermal energy produced in the nuclear power plant from 1 t of enriched uranium / heavy metal contained in the nuclear fuel. It ranges between 40 and 43.4 GWd/t for pressurized water reators (PWR), and 33 and 40 GWd/t for boiling water reactors (BWR). GWd stands for Gigawatt-days, 1 GWd = 24 million kilowatt-hours. The burnup has impacts on the isotope composition of the spent fuel, and thus also on the uranium isotope composition in uranium recycled from this spent fuel.
The initial enrichment figure is identical to the enrichment for fuel from enriched natural uranium. For fuel from recycled uranium, it describes the enrichment of natural uranium that would produce the same amount of energy. Actual enrichment figures for recycled uranium are higher to compensate for the presence of U-236, a neutron absorber. The composition of the uranium isotopes is determined according to the selection from the "burnup / initial enrichment" pick list, based on [Neghabian1991]. The actual figures for the current selection are shown in the Assay Summary in the Result window for reference. The figures are based on a 5 year storage time after reactor unload. For MOX fuel, the initial enrichment figure describes the enrichment of natural uranium that would produce the same amount of energy.
- LWR Power Plant: Efficiency [%]
- Efficiency of converting thermal energy into net electricity, ranges between 32% and 34.5%.
- HWR Power Plant: Burnup [GWd/tHM]
- The burnup is the thermal energy produced in the nuclear power plant from 1 t of natural uranium contained in the nuclear fuel.
- HWR Power Plant: Efficiency [%]
- Efficiency of converting thermal energy into net electricity
The formulae used by the calculator for the enrichment process can be found in Wikipedia 
.
[NEA Red Book 2010] Uranium 2009: Resources, Production and Demand, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency / International Atomic Energy Agency, Paris 2010
[IAEA 2001] Analysis of Uranium Supply to 2050, International Atomic Energy Agency, STI/PUB/1104, ISBN 92-0-100401-X, Vienna, May 2001, 103 pp.
[Neghabian1991] Verwendung von wiederaufgearbeitetem Uran und von abgereichertem Uran, von A.R. Neghabian, H.J. Becker, A. Baran, H.-W. Binzel, Der Bundesminister für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit (Hg.), Schriftenreihe Reaktorsicherheit und Strahlenschutz, BMU-1992-332, November 1991, 186 S.