Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mphil-in-nuclear-energy-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/paper-ne4/1/c/solution

Use the recovered uranium inventory, rather than the initial fuel mass, as the recycle feed. Its available mass is
Assuming the same enrichment tails assay and the specified higher recycled-fuel assay, the isotopic mass balance gives
Treat this fuel as replacing the same heavy-metal mass of ordinary fresh fuel: the stipulated higher uranium-235 content compensates for uranium-236. The displaced natural feed is
about 12.63% of the once-through natural-uranium requirement. The residual natural feed demand is .
For separative work accounting define
Using kilograms in this expression gives kg-SWU. For ordinary fresh fuel the work per product kilogram is
The fresh work avoided by substituting is , but producing that recycled product still requires
Hence the net saving is
The work saving is only about 0.786% of the original annual separative work. Crediting the whole avoided fresh-fuel work without charging the recycle work would substantially overstate the saving. This is an annual resource account at the supplied assays, with no isotope-separation equipment model.

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