The recycle feed is the recovered uranium, not the whole initial nuclear fuel charge. After the stated loss it is
Using the same enrichment tails assay and the stipulated higher recycle-product assay, the isotopic mass balance gives
Treat the recycled product as replacing the same uranium mass of ordinary nuclear fuel: the additional uranium-235 compensates for the supplied uranium-236 penalty. It displaces fresh natural-uranium feed in the ratio calculated in part (b), hence
The remaining natural feed is , a 9.885% resource saving relative to the full-power once-through requirement. This credits one uranium recycle only; it adds no second-pass recycling or plutonium credit.
Separative work must be charged for producing the recycled nuclear fuel as well as credited for displaced fresh nuclear fuel. With uranium-235 mass fraction , use the separative value function
Masses in kilograms give work in kg-SWU. For ordinary fresh product the work per product kilogram is
Thus the fresh work avoided is
The recycled product still requires
The net separative-work saving is consequently
As a whole-cycle check, the fresh route requires kg-SWU per year, while the mixed fresh-plus-recycled supply requires kg-SWU. The net saving is only 0.7385% of the original work. The recovered stream has a higher uranium-235 assay than natural feed, but the higher required product assay uses most of the work credit. These equations are resource accounting and do not specify an uranium enrichment plant or its operation.
burnup refers to thermal energy per initial heavy-metal mass. Correct the electrical rating for thermal efficiency before using it, and apply the capacity factor once:
Consequently the annual initial heavy-metal fuel requirement is
Let be feed, enriched product and enrichment tails masses, all measured as uranium, and the corresponding uranium-235 mass fractions. The isotopic mass balance gives
With , the uranium oxide concentrate requirement is therefore
These are uranium or heavy-metal masses, not tonnes of uranium oxide. The check closes the uranium-235 balance as well as the total mass balance.
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.