\ ....

.,.,

ENRICHMENT SUPPLY AND TECHNOLOGYOUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES

s. A. LevinS. Blumkin

Enrichment Planning Department

For Presentati.on at the American Nuclea.r SocietyExecutive Conf'erence on Uranium Fuel Supply

a.t Monterey, California, January 26, 1977

January 1.3, 1.977

:'

prepared for the U.S. Eto.lERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMllI1lSTRATIDNunder U.S. GOVERNMENT Conrract W·7405 eng 25.

ENRICHMENT SUPPLY AND TECHNOLOGYOUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES

by

S. A. LevinS. Blumkin

Union Carbide Corporation, Nuclear Division

For Presentation at the American Nuclear Societ)·Executive Conference on Uranium Fuel Supplyat Monterey, Cali fornia, JMuary 26, 1977

This review of' foreign uranium enrichment capacity and uranium isotopeseparation technology is based solely on neys i ~ms and articles in thepublic literature. It should not be presumed that the inclusion in thispresentation of any reported information necessarily attests to itsvalidity.

Foreign Enrichment Capacity

There are current~ just four nations, other than the U. S., that havefa.cili ties la,rger than that of a pile+. plant for the enrichment of U-235.These are Great Britain, France, Russia. and CI:I),na. All of' their existing:plants were built initially' 1'01' the p\JrIlose of fulfilling military objec­tives. Of the four, orily Russia has sufficient capacity beyond i'ts ownnational. needs to sell some toll enrichment services abroad.

A strong interest has been developing in many nations in recent years toacquire their ovo capacity to enrich uran:!um to fuel grade levels, or atleast to share in such arL enterprise. The chief motivation for this isthe desire to acquire an assured supp~ of fuel for their nuclear powerreactors. In the case of a feY nations that possess large, rich depositsof uranitrm ore, the prime motive is to maximize the economic benefitsree1izable from the omlership of sUch a resource by enriching their O'WIl

uranium and selling the produc,t. There are a few countries that areinterested in acquiring uranium enrichment facilit.ies in order to capitalizeon the fact that they have sites where large quantities of inexpensivepower are. or can be made, available.

In general, commercial scale uranium enrichment imposes such a burden ona nation's resources that most of the nations seeking to develop their ownenri~bment capability have sought partners to join them in such an enter­prise. Two multi-national E-uropean consortia tha.t were formed f'or thispurpose and have become well knO'lm in recent years are Urenco and Eurodif.Both of theBe groups currently have sizable enricbment facilities underconstruction. West Germany and Brazil have forma1ly agreed to a jointenricbment venture. the first phase of Which is the construction of asmall demonstration plant in Brazil. Japan and Australia. and also France

2

and Canada have engaged, for a number of years, in intermittent neg~tia­

tions regarding joint enrichment ventures with no agreements to date. Onthe other hand, South Africa has developed independently an isotope sepa­raticn process it calls uniq,ue and has announced plans to apply it in acommercial scale plant.

World-wide plans, outside of the U.S., for the construction of uraniumenrichment facHities as they stood at the end of 1976 are summarized inTable 1. For those plans that are listed as definite in this table, there:may be some slippage in the year of completion of the full capacity: forexample, there is talk that Urenco might decide, depending on market condi­tions, to stretch its completion date for 10,000 MTSWU!year capacity to1988, from the original date of 1985. With "regard to conditional plans,Coredli', which is an affiliate of Eurodif, intends to expand its capacitybeyond the first 5400 MTSWU/year only if the market outlook in "the 1930' sappears favorable. It. is expected that Japan's intention to build thelisted facility will be affected by any success it has in lining up apartner for a joint venture.

III March 1970 Great Britain, West Germany and the Netherlands officiallyfo~ed the tripartite Urenco/Centec Group. These three nations, each ofwhich had been engaged independently in gas centrifuge research unddevelopment, formally agreed to pool their technologies and financialresources for the production of nuclear fuel by the enrichment of uraniumby centri f'ugation. Three pilot plants, two at Almelo, each with a. capa­city of 25 M'rSWU/year, and one at Capenhurst with a capacity of 14 MTSWU/year, ha.ve been built and are now fully operational.. Ea.ch of the threepartners ~",? "t.esting their own particular machine designs in one of thethree plantS. Product from these pilot plants has been delivered toutilities in the member nations. Two demonstration plants, one at eachsite, are current~ under construction. Each of these, when in full opera­tion in 1979, will have a capacity of 200 MTSWU/year. It has been reportedthat the first cascades at each site, representing about one-tenth of thescheduled capacity, are now in operation. Urenco plans call for instal­lation of 1400 MTSW/year at Almelo and 700 MTSWU/year at Capenhurst by1982. Original expectations were that these ;rould be expanded to a totalof 10,000 MTSWU/year by 1985, but according to some reports this may bestretched out to 1988 because of slower than expected growth in demand.Very recently, Uranit, which is the FRG member of Urenco, alIDounced itwill build a 1,000 MTSWU/year centrifuge plant in Germany to be readyabout 1985. !t is not clear whether this represents an addition toUrenco's capacity plans or a substitution in ;rho1e or in part for anotherinstallation in its program.

Eurodif, the other active multinational. ccnsortium, "ioTaS promoted andorgani zed in 1972 under the leadership of France. The membership anda.pportionment of shares in Eurodif' has been changeable. Presently it isconstituted by Belgium and Spain 11% each, Italy 25%, France 28% andSofidif 25%, which is 40% owned by Iran and 60% by Fl·ance. By utilizingthe tried and. proven French gaseous diffusion technology, Eurod1f mini­mized design and development efforts and ;ras thereby able to begin

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4

construc~ion of its indus~rial scale plant in July 1974 ~t Tricastin inFrance. This plant will ha.ve a capacity of 10,800 wrSWU/year (increased:from the origina1.ly planned 9000) and is nov sc:heduled to be in fullopera~ion in 1982. In 1975. another consortium ca.lled Coredif with thesame multinBtional membership as Eurodif but a different distribution ofshares (Eurodif 51%, France 29% and Iran 20%) was organized to assessfuture nuclear demand and build a second Eurodi:f-type plant if the studyresults Justified it. Late last year. the decision was made by Coredi!to proceed wi~h So 5400 MTSWU in~ta1lation to be fully in production in 1985,followed by a doubling of the capacity in the late 1980's. A site for theCoredif p:Lant has not yet been selected.

Ir addition to its ef'f'orts in ceotri fugation, Wes t Germany ha.s beendeveloping the separation nozzle process for more than a decade. It hasmade sigDificant progress in making the process a viable one. Reportswere circulating a. few years ago that a. demo plant of about 700 MTSWV/y€:arfor the jet nozzle was planned. In 1975, the FRG and Brazil signed abilateral nuclear accord Whereby the FRG will sell its jet nozzle tech­nology to :BraziJ. along with follOW-Up technical support for the eventualconstruction of a. Jointly owned enrichment plant in Brazil. Initial plansby the partnership organized under the name of Nuclebras call for ademonstration plant with capacity of 180 Ml'SWU/year to be built in Brazil.This will evidently substitute for the demo plant originally p't'oJected tobe built in Germany. There is no word on the ca.pacity o:f the cvmmercia.lscale jet nozzle pJ.ant that Nuclebras envisions for the future.

Several years ago the South Africans announced that they had developed auranium isotope separation process that is diff'erent from all those whichhad hitherto been used 01' considered, the nature of which they declinedto disclose. In 1975. they announced that the process is hased on aseparating e:ement which is described as a high performance, stationary­waJ.l centrifuge operating on a. mixture of' UF6 and H2 at higher thanatmospheric pressure. Many observers, including Becker himself. accOl:d.ingto reported comments. have the opinion that the South A:frican process ~,s

fundamentaJ.ly a variation of the Becker separation nozzle. The SouthAfricans have built and ~re opera.ting a pilot plant testir~ their proce~s

and report that it has fully met all theoretical expectations. An officialdecision has been made to construct a commercial scale enrichment plant,but its capacity vill be determined in 1978 contingent upon the size of'enrichment service contracts they can make by then. Present unoff'icialbest estimates for the plant size are 5000 wrSWU/year to be fully onstream i.n 1986.

Ja.pa.'1 has been seeking partnerships, so far unsuccessfully, wherein Japan~'ill furdsh most of the financing and the partners supply either the feeduranium or a. proven technology or both. Meanwhile, Ja.pan has 'beendeveloping its own centrifuge design. A~ter having tested machines invery small pilot plants, it is about to ')egin construction of a. largepilot plant comprised. when ccmpleted in about 1980, of e.pproximatelyTOOO machines with a capa.city of about 50 MTSmJ/year. Successful opera­tion of this pilot plant vill be folloved by the construction of a fullsized centrifuge facility of 6000 MTSWU to be ready in 1985, unlessJapan succeeds in msking other arrangements in the interim.

5

IThe USSR, which has never revealed the capacity of its existing uraniumenrichment facillties nor E\.!lY plans for expansion, hall been in thl" marketas a seller of enrichment services. There have beefj~eports. however,from other than official USSR sources. that it is it.: tbe process of in­creasing its enrichment capacity in order to take care of its growingdomes tic requirements and to expand into the world market for toll enrich­ment servic.es. The ca.pacity quantity shown for RUSfsia in Table I merelyrepresents outsiders' estimates of how much separative work .1 t will haveavailable for foreign sale annually. What rel8,tiorJ.ship this bears to theactual expansion, if any, of its uranium isotope se~aration facilities

.is unknown.

A number of nations, in addition to those e.lready mentioned, are con­sidering the feasibility of building commercial scale enrichment facilities.A current list of these are Australia, Canada as specifically representedby its prOVince of Quebec, India, Sweden and Zaire. None of these have planssufficiently advanced which would warrant their inclusion i.n the table.

Portions of the projected capacities listed in Tabl~ 1 will be in opera­tion prior to the final proj ect completion date shown. Accordingly. wehave constructed a schedule, shown in Table 2. of the approximate ex­pected growth in enrichment capacity outside of the U.S. based on thevarious pronouncements we have seen to date. This tabulation omits thecondUional capacity pla.ns listed in Table 1. This sched.ule is probablyoptimistic since there are some reports of possible slippage in on-streamdates. According to some sources. for e}~le, Urenco's two demo plantsoriginally' expected to be in fUll operation in 1978 will probably becompleted in 1979, the 2100 MTSWU capacity sched.uled for completion in1982 win probably not be finished until 1983. and the planned attainmentof a capacity of 10,000 M'l'SWU scheduled for 1985 mB¥ be stretched out to1988. With respect to this table, the recently a.nnounceo. Uranit plan(the FRG member of Urenco) to build a 1000 MTSWU plant in Germany is treatedas a "Lt:!-allocation of, rather than an addition to, planned capacity.

The numbers'shewn for Russia in Table 2 do not represent a growth scheduleof separative work ctlpacity but rather one of seperative work availablefor foreign sale. The sources of'these numbers are evidently prospectivepurchasers of' future Russian toll enrichment services.

Sales of' Separative Work

All of the global demand for current toll enrichment services is being metby the U.S. and the USSR, With the U.S. being the larger supplier by far.Eurodif and Urenco have entered the market by selli~g contracts forfuture delivery of separative work services during the next decade. Asummary of the sales contracts signed by foreign suppliers to date ispresented in Table 3.

TABL

E2

APP

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XIM

ATE

SCH

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LEO

FFO

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GN

ENRI

CHM

ENT

CA

PAC

ITY

GROW

TH

To

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ve

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ity

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emen

tfo

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ear

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ase

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nd

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rod

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red

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nco

USS

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cleb

ras

S.

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ica.

Th

ru19

760

.10

.40

.50

.5

1977

0.2

0.4

0.6

1.1

1978

0.2

0.2

0.4

1.5

1979

3.0

0.4

0.5

3.9

5.4

1980

3.2

0.4

0.5

4.1

9.5

0\

1981

2.3

0.4

0.5

0.2

3.4

12.9

1982

2.3

0.4

0.5

3.2

16

.1

1983

2.7

2.3

5.0

21.1

1984

2.7

2.6

1.6

6.9

28.0

1985

3.0

1.6

4.6

32.6

1986

1.8

1.8

34.4

--

---

--

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7

TABlE 3

SALES OF ENRICHMENT SERVICES BYFOREIGN ENRICHERS TO OUTSIDERS

DeliveryEnricher Buyer Total swu. m Period

Eurodif FRG 600 1981-84Ja.pan 10000 1981-90Switzerland ~ 1981-90

TO'.CAL 11520

Urenco Bra.zi~ 2000 1984-94Ireland 570 1981-90Sw"lt'Zer1end 850 1983-90

TOTAL 3420

Russia. AU.3tria 1260 1978..87Be1r,ium 1300 1979-85FinJ!Uld 620 1978-86France 3500 :i.979..83FRG 6220 1976-90ItalY 3920 1976-83Spain 5100 1978-86Sweden 600 1979-82United Kingdom 1000 1981-90

TOTAL 23520

8

The participating states in the two consortia, Eurodif and Urenco, 1oI'hicbhave sizable enrichment facilities eitber und~r construction or on thedraving boards are expected to take tbe greater pfU't of the production oftheir consortium. Each member nation will purchase, on an indefinitelycontinuing basis, a traction of the available production roughly in pro­portion to its f"in811cial share in the enterprise. There will be soll1eproduction, however, in excess of the total requirements of the memperstates, vhich vill be available for sale to outsiders. Only sales bY aconsortium to non-member states are listed in Table 3.

According to Eurodif, 97% of the rated ca.pacity of its Tricestin :planthas been contracted out through 1990. It has sold about 11,500 M'l'SWU tooutsiders, deliverable in the 1980's, most a.ll of" it to Japan. Accordingto Urenco the entire capacity of about 2,100 MTSWU/year it expects to haveon stream in 1982 or 1983 has been committed. Sales to non-member statestotal about 3,400 MTSWU with more than huf of it to Brazil. Russia hascontracted to deliver a total of about 23,500 MTSWU through 1990 to pineEuropean countries on this side of'the "Iron Curtain", five of themmembers of Eurodif or Urenco. Russia is known to be seekipg a contract..rith Austra.l.ia whereby Australian uranium wou1d be enriched in Russianplants. It has also been reported that Russia is interested in sellingseparative "Work. services to utility companies in Japan and the U.S.

Price of Separative Work

Arter some reluctance to disclose its separative work price, Eurodifdeclared, toward the end of 1976, that it is about $100/SWU plus a costescalation factor to non-member states, with the price somewhat less topartner nations. Uren~o announced in early 1975 that its current sepa.­rative work contract price is the order of' $lOO/SWU plus an escalationfactor that is related to the degree of price inflation and to certe-inmarket conditions. The South Africans claimed initially that their pro­cess will be able to perf"orm separative work at a price 20% less than thatof U.S. gaseous di f'fus ion. Lately, i'i. has said that its process enrichmentcosts com:pare favorably with that f':,~ an advanced centrifuge plant. thatis, the order ot' $lOO/SWU. The SCllth Africans have indicated that they areabout reacy to write contracts for the future delivery of separatb'ework. None such have yet been reported. Thus, three prospective com­mercial enri chers, Eurodif, Urenco and UCOR (South Africa.). each with adi fferent :process, have in effect come up vith essentially the sameenrichment costs.

,I

While on the subject 01' enrichment cost, a comparison of its major cOI)l-penents for these processes 'Would be of interest. Such a comparison'ismade in Table 4. Though no plRIls for a commercial. scale plant ha.'1e peenannounced or a probable SWU market price conjectured for it, West Gt-jrIll8.Ily'sseparation nozzle process is included in this table since it may b<,; aP

economicaJJy viable process with potential future industrial scale applica­tion. In this tabulation each of the processes is compared with respectto un! t capital investment costs. unit power costs, and other operatinguni t costs with those for gaseous diffusion. The comparisons are based

9

TABLE 4

COMPARISON OF PROCESS ECONrn{[CS

Unit Unit UnitCapital Power Operating Costs for

Process Investment ~ Other Than Power

Centrifuge : Urenco > < >

Stationary-Wall '" '" NE

Centrifuge: South Africa

Separation Nozzle: FRG < > ""

Definition of Symbols:

= approximately equal to diffus ion

>,< greater than, less than diffusion, respectively

NE no es timate

10

on estima.tes made by the proceas developers. Note should be taken ofthe fact that the unit power cost for the centrifuge is less than, andfor the separa.tion nozzle process greater than, that for gaseous diffusionin reflection of their relative specific power consumption. For the&luth Africanprocess, the specific power consumption is greater thanthat. for diffusion but its unit power cost is given as roughly equalto that of diff"usion because of low cost power asserted to be availableat th~ projected plant site.

~lgn TechnOlogy

There are many na.tions which h~vc active research and development programson uranium isotope aeparation. Some of these na.tions are seeking todevelop their own version of a technology alread¥ developed by others inorder to acquire an uninterr'llptable and independent means of obtainingnuclear fuel. Other countries, which already have a viable enrichmenttechnOlogy or even an operating large scale facility, are working on im­proving their present process and are simultaneously investigating otherprocesses which promise to be econ?raica1ly superior. A summary of theknown major R&D activities outside the U.S. is presented in Table 5. Thistabulation does not offer a canplete list of the processes that are beinginvestigated or necessarily a complete list of countries ~ith an R&D pro­gram in uranium enrichment. Other aerodynamic processes being investigatedin France and Germa~, and plasma-based processes being researched inAustralia, West Germany and the Netherlands, have been omitted since thework thUS far is either mainly of a preliminary nature or there is somequestion whether there will be a continuing effort.

TABL

E5

FORE

IGN

R&D

AC

TIV

ITIE

SON

URAN

IUM

ISO

TOPE

SEPA

RATI

ON

Pro

cess

Cen

trif

ug

atio

n

Cou

ntry

or

Con

sort

ium

Au

stra

lia

Fra

nce

Ind

ia

Italy

Jap

an

SWed

en

Ure

.nco

Sta

tus

R&D

sin

ce19

65;

mai

nly

sin

gle

mac

hine

stu

die

sw

ith

som

eth

eo­

reti

cal

end

exp

erim

enta

lca

scad

e'W

ork.

Co

nst

ruct

ion

01'

api~ot

pla

nt

isu

nd

erco

nsi

der

atio

n.

R&D

sin

ce~960.

Fir

st3

gen

erat

ion

so

fm

achi

nes

ind

icat

edce

ntr

ifu

gat

ion

at

least

twic

eas

expe

nsiv

eas

gase

ous

dif

fusi

on

.N

ov

loo

kin

gat

4th

gen

erat

ion

des

ign

t'W

hich

ise.

Bu

per

crit

ical

mac

hine

.R

epor

tin

1972

that

Ind

ian

AEC

was

sett

ing

upa

stu

dy

prog

ram

.N

ore

po

rts

sin

ce.

Wor

kin

pro

gre

sssi

nce

1969

.W

aste

stin

g2n

dg

ener

atio

nm

achi

nein

1975

.

A18

0-m

achi

neca

scad

ein

op

erat

ion

sin

ce19

73an

da

casc

ade

of

250

impr

oved

mac

hine

sco

mpl

eted

and

run

nin

gin

1976

.P

endi

ngo

ffic

ial

auth

ori

zati

on

a50

MTS

WU

dem

op

lan

tco

nsi

stin

go

fab

ou

t7,

000

mac

hine

sp

lan

ned

for

com

ple

tio

nin

1979

.A

nin

du

stri

al

scale

facil

ity

of

6,0

00

MTS

WU

/yr

for

stQ

.l't-

upin

1985

isun

der

con

sid

erat

ion

.

Bas

icst

ud

ies

sin

ce19

71.

Init

iall

yin

dep

end

ent

eff

ort

sb

yFR

G,

Net

her

lan

ds

and

UK

,co

m­

bin

edin

tojo

int

prog

ram

.O

per

atin

g3

pil

ot

pla

nts

.P

ort

ion

so

ftw

ode

mo

pla

nts

ino

per

atio

n.

l-' ....'

TAB

LE5

(co

nti

nu

ed)

FORE

IGN

R&D

AC

TIV

ITIE

SON

URAN

IUM

ISO

TOPE

SEPA

RATI

ON

Pro

cess

Gas~ous

Dif

fusi

on

Co

un

try

or

Co

nso

rtiu

m

Ch

ina

Eu

rod

if

Fra

nce

Italy

Jap

an

Ru

ssia

UK

Sta

tus

Op

erat

ing

pla

nt

of

unkn

own

bu

tp

resu

mab

lysm

all

cap

acit

y.

Has

ala

rge

com

mer

cial

scale

facil

ity

un

der

co

nst

ructi

on

.P

ax

ti­

cip

an

tsare

Bel

giu

m,

Fra

nce

,Ir

an

,It

aly

and

Sp

ain

.R

&Dis

ma

inly

inF

I'an

cew

ith

som

eacti

vit

yin

Italy

.

Has

op

era

tin

gp

lan

to

fab

ou

t4

00

-60

0M

TSW

Ua.

tP

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