사용후핵연료 관리에서 직접 처분과 Pyroprocessing–Sodium Fast Reactor 통합 시스템의 경제성 비교 검토

This review compares the economic feasibility of two back-end strategies for spent nuclear fuel management: direct disposal under the once-through nuclear fuel cycle and the pyroprocessing with sodium-cooled fast reactor system, a closed fuel cycle option. The essence of this comparison is not a simple contrast between a non-revenue-generating disposal option and a recycling option that can generate electricity sales revenue, but rather an evaluation of the incremental cash flow between the two alternatives. In the revised framework, economic feasibility is evaluated by ΔNPV = Σ[ΔFCFt/(1+r)t], where ΔFCFt includes only the cash-flow changes caused by adopting the Pyro-SFR option relative to the direct-disposal baseline. Avoided-disposal value is not treated as the full direct-disposal cost. Instead, it is defined as the net reduction in disposal burden after subtracting the residual burden of fission products, process wastes, contaminated salt, cladding and structural wastes, TRU losses, and terminal SFR fuel or nuclear-material inventory. This clarification prevents double counting among avoided-disposal value, recovered U/TRU fuel value, and SFR electricity sales revenue. The review indicates that Pyro-SFR should not be understood as a technology that directly eliminates disposal. Rather, it changes the form and composition of the disposal target. The economics remain sensitive to the conversion ratio, pyroprocessing separation or net recovery efficiency(η), capital expenditure, remote fuel fabrication cost, and weighted average cost of capital. The CR-η viability regions reported in this paper are interpreted as conditional model thresholds rather than demonstrated commercial performance values.