Expanding interest in nuclear power and advanced fuel cycles indicate that use of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in the current and new U.S. reactor fleet could become an option for utilities in the coming decades. In light of this renewed interest, EPRI has reviewed the substantial knowledge base on MOX fuel irradiation in light water reactors (LWRs). The goal was to evaluate the technical feasibility of MOX fuel use in the U.S. reactor fleet for both existing and advanced LWR designs (Generation III/III+).

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is evaluating the safety and security of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) stored in dry casks for extended time periods before transportation to a location where the SNF is further processed or permanently disposed.

Several hundred distinct types of DOE-owned spent nuclear fuel (DSNF) may potentially be disposed in the Yucca Mountain repository. These fuel types represent many more types than can be viably individually examined for their effect on the Total System Performance Assessment for the License Application (TSPA-LA). Additionally, for most of these fuel types, there is no known direct experimental test data for the degradation and dissolution of the waste form in repository groundwaters.