Energy perspectives for the current century are dominated by the anticipated significant increase of energy needs. Particularly, electricity consumption is anticipated to increase by a factor higher than two before 2050. Energy choices are considered as structuring political choices that implies a long-standing and stable policy based on objective criteria. LCA (life cycle analysis) is a structured basis for deriving relevant indicators which can allow the comparison of a wide range of impacts of different energy sources. Among the energy-mix, nuclear power is anticipated to have very low GHG-emissions. However, its viability is severely addressed by the public opinion after the Fukushima accident. Therefore, a global LCA of the French nuclear fuel cycle was performed as a reference model. Results were compared in terms of impact with other energy sources. It emphasized that the French nuclear energy is one of the less impacting energy, comparable with renewable energy. In a second, part, the French scenario was compared with an equivalent open fuel cycle scenario. It demonstrates that an open fuel cycle would require about 16% more natural uranium, would have a bigger environmental footprint on the “non radioactive indicators” and would produce a higher volume of high level radioactive waste

In this early 21st century, our societies have to face a tremendous and increasing energy need while mitigating the global climate change and preserving the environment. Addressing this challenge requires an energy transition from the current fossil energy-based system to a carbon-free energy production system, based on a relevant energy mix combining renewables and nuclear energy. However, such an energy transition will only occur if it is accepted by the population. Powerful and reliable tools, such as life cycle assessments (LCA), aiming at assessing the respective merits of the different energy mix for most of the environmental impact indicators are therefore mandatory for supporting a risk-informed decision-process at the societal level. Before studying the deployment of a given energy mix, a prerequisite is to perform LCAs on each of the components of the mix. This paper addresses two potential nuclear energy components: a nuclear fuel cycle based on the Generation III European Pressurized Reactors (EPR) and a nuclear fuel cycle based on the Generation IV Sodium Fast Reactors (SFR). The basis of this study relies on the previous work done on the current French nuclear fuel cycle using the bespoke NELCAS tool specifically developed for studying nuclear fuel cycle environmental impacts. Our study highlights that the EPR already brings a limited improvement to the current fuel cycle thanks to a higher efficiency of the energy transformation and a higher burn-up of the nuclear fuel (−20% on most of the chosen indicators) whereas the introduction of the GEN IV fast reactors will bring a significant breakthrough by suppressing the current front-end of the fuel cycle thanks to the use of depleted uranium instead of natural enriched uranium (this leads to a decrease of the impact from 17% on water consumption and withdrawal and up to 96% on SO_x emissions). The specific case of the radioactive waste is also studied, showing that only the partitioning and transmutation of the americium in the blanket fuel of the SFR can reduce the footprint of the geological disposal (saving up to a factor of 7 on the total repository volume). Having now at disposition five models (open fuel cycle, current French twice through fuel cycle, EPR twice through fuel cycle, multi-recycling SFR fuel cycle and at a longer term, multi-recycling SFR fuel cycle including americium transmutation), it is possible to model the environmental impact of any fuel cycle combining these technologies. In the next step, these models will be combined with those of other carbon-free energies (wind, solar, biomass…) in order to estimate the environmental impact of future energy mixes and also to analyze the impact on the way these scenarios are deployed (transition pathways).

Each year, more than 10 thousand tons of spent fuels are discharged from nuclear power plants in the world. Heavy element nuclear fission reactions, at the origin of energy production, generate fission products of intermediary mass, some of them being considered nowadays as critical raw materials. The potential interest to treat these spent fuels in order to recycle these elements has risen recently following increasing international tensions on their supply for industry and energy. A study was carried out on the basis of the French nuclear fuel cycle scenario in order first to evaluate the inventory of such metals in spent fuel. The only elements of interest, since in significant amount, would be rare earth elements (REE) and platinum group metals (PGM). However, compare to the annual need of REE, the amount that would be recovered from spent fuels represent less than 0.01% of the annual world production. Because of the low price of these elements, there is no economic interest for such a recovery. The case of PGM, and specifically ruthenium and rhodium, is quite different. Even if a lower amount of these elements are in spent fuel, it represents 22% for Ru and 3.5% for Rh of the annual world production. The drawback is that these elements have numerous radioactive isotopes that forbid using them for industrial applications. 20–50 years of storage after separation would be necessary for ruthenium and rhodium to get a radioactivity level lower than potential clearance levels. Before any industrial use, very efficient separation processes would be required to selectively recover these elements. The physico-chemical forms of these elements in the spent fuel make the work tricky. Finally, such a use would require the official existence of a clearance level for nuclear materials as recommended by the IAEA