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Uranium is the raw material used to fuel over 400 operational nuclear reactors around the world that produce large amounts of electricity and benefit from life cycle carbon emissions as low as renewable energy sources. Although a valuable commodity, declining market prices for uranium since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011, driven by uncertainties concerning the future of nuclear power, have led to the postponement of mine development plans in a number of countries and raised questions about continued uranium supply. This 25th edition of the “Red Book”, a recognised world reference on uranium jointly prepared by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, provides analyses and information from 45 producing and consuming countries in order to address these and other questions. It includes data on global uranium exploration, resources, production and reactor-related requirements. It offers updated information on established uranium production centres and mine development plans, as well as projections of nuclear generating capacity and reactor-related requirements through 2035, incorporating policy changes following the Fukushima accident, in order to address long-term uranium supply and demand issues.

Nuclear decommissioning activities can greatly benefit from research and development (R&D) projects. This report examines applicable emergent technologies, current research efforts and innovation needs to build a base of knowledge regarding the status of decommissioning technology and R&D. This base knowledge can be used to obtain consensus on future R&D that is worth funding. It can also assist in deciding how to collaborate and optimise the limited pool of financial resources available among NEA member countries for nuclear decommissioning R&D.

Decommissioning of nuclear facilities and related remedial actions are currently being undertaken around the world to enable sites or parts of sites to be reused for other purposes. Remediation has generally been considered as the last step in a sequence of decommissioning steps, but the values of prevention, long-term planning and parallel remediation are increasingly being recognised as important steps in the process. This report, prepared by the Task Group on Nuclear Site Restoration of the NEA Co-operative Programme on Decommissioning, highlights lessons learnt from remediation experiences of NEA member countries that may be particularly helpful to practitioners of nuclear site remediation, regulators and site operators. It provides observations and recommendations to consider in the development of strategies and plans for efcient nuclear site remediation that ensures protection of workers and the environment.

This regulatory guidance booklet describes the characteristics of an effective nuclear safety regulator in terms of roles and responsibilities, principles and attributes. Each of the characteristics discussed in this report is a necessary feature of an effective nuclear safety regulator but no one characteristic is sufficient on its own. It is the combination of these characteristics that leads to the effectiveness of a nuclear regulatory body. The report provides a unique resource to countries with existing, mature regulators and can be used for benchmarking as well as training and developing staff. It will also be useful for new entrant countries in the process of developing and maintaining an effective nuclear safety regulator.

Uranium mining and milling has evolved significantly over the years. By comparing currently leading approaches with outdated practices, this report demonstrates how uranium mining can be conducted in a way that protects workers, the public and the environment. Innovative, modern mining practices combined with strictly enforced regulatory standards are geared towards avoiding past mistakes committed primarily during the early history of the industry when maximising uranium production was the principal operating consideration. Today’s leading practices in uranium mining aim at producing uranium in an efficient and safe manner that limits environmental impacts to acceptable standards. As indicated in this report, the collection of baseline environmental data, environmental monitoring and public consultation throughout the life cycle of the mine enables verification that the facility is operating as planned, provides early warning of any potentially adverse impacts on the environment and keeps stakeholders informed of developments. Leading practice also supports planning for mine closure before mine production is licensed to ensure that the mining lease area is returned to an environmentally acceptable condition. The report highlights the importance of mine workers being properly trained and well equipped, as well as that of ensuring that their work environment is well ventilated so as to curtail exposure to radiation and hazardous materials and thereby minimise health impacts.

This volume is the 13th in the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) “Chemical Thermodynamics” series. It is the first part of a critical review of the thermodynamic properties of iron, its solid compounds and aqueous complexes, initiated as part of the NEA Thermochemical Database Project Phase III (TDB III). The database system developed at the OECD/NEA Data Bank ensures consistency not only within the recommended data sets of iron, but also among all the data sets published in the series. This volume will be of particular interest to scientists carrying out performance assessments of deep geological disposal sites for radioactive waste.

A modern light water reactor (LWR) of 1 GWe capacity will typically discharge about 20-25 tonnes of irradiated fuel (spent fuel) per year of operation. Despite the low content of about 0.1-0.2% of minor actinides in spent fuel, these actinides can nonetheless contribute significantly to decay heat loading and neutron output, as well as to the overall radiotoxic hazard of spent fuel. For this reason, there has long been an interest in transmuting minor actinides to reduce their impact on the back end of the fuel cycle. Fast reactors are needed to effectively transmute transuranics (TRUs), including minor actinides. However, recent studies have demonstrated that TRU transmutation rates can also be achieved in thermal reactors, although with certain limitations due to the accumulation of transuranics through recycling and their impact on the safety of power plants. The transmutation of TRUs could potentially be implemented in a substantial number of thermal reactors operating today, while waiting for a similar programme in fast reactors to allow for commercial-scale operations in 20 to 30 years or more.

This publication provides an introduction to minor actinide nuclear properties and discusses some of the arguments in favour of minor actinide recycling, as well as the potential role of thermal reactors in this regard. Various technical issues and challenges are examined from the fuel cycle, operations, fuel designs, core management and safety/dynamics responses to safety and economics. The focus of this report is on the general conclusions of recent research that could be applied to thermal reactors. Further research and development needs are also considered, with summaries of findings and recommendations for the direction of future R&D efforts.

Particle accelerators have evolved over the last decades from simple devices to powerful machines and are having an increasingly important impact on research, technology and daily life. Today, they have a wide range of applications in many areas including material science and medical applications. In recent years, new technological and research applications have helped to define requirements while the number of accelerator facilities in operation, being commissioned, designed or planned has grown significantly. Their parameters, which include the beam energy, currents and intensities, and target composition, can vary widely, giving rise to new radiation shielding issues and challenges.

Particle accelerators must be operated in safe ways to protect operators, the public and the environment. As the design and use of these facilities evolve, so must the analytical methods used in the safety analyses. These workshop proceedings review the state of the art in radiation shielding of accelerator facilities and irradiation targets. They also evaluate progress in the development of modelling methods used to assess the effectiveness of such shielding as part of safety analyses.

Nuclear Energy Data is the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency's annual compilation of statistics and country reports documenting the status of nuclear power in the OECD area. Information provided by member country governments includes statistics on installed generating capacity, total electricity produced by all sources and by nuclear power, nuclear energy policies, fuel cycle developments, and projected generating capacity and electricity production to 2035, where available.