Fuel Cycle Working Groups

Fuel Report

Co-Chairs: James Nevling (Exelon Generation Company) and Alexander Boytsov (TENEX)
Staff Director: Olga Skorlyakova

Published since the 1970s, The Nuclear Fuel Report: Global Scenarios for Demand and Supply Availability compiles data from confidential surveys, international agencies and other public sources to produce an authoritative projection of global nuclear fuel supply and demand. Member experts of the Fuel Report Working Group cooperate on the report through six sub-groups. Each focuses on different areas of the fuel cycle and has ownership of a different chapters. The next edition will be published in September 2021 and will look at scenarios to 2040. 

Demand Sub-Group
Co-Chairs: Carole Marot (EDF) and Brandon Munro (Bannerman Resources)
  
Agrees on three scenarios (Lower, Reference, Upper) for future nuclear capacity out to a 20-year horizon and the main assumptions (e.g. load factors) affecting future requirements.
 
Uranium Supply Sub-Group 
Chair: Julian Tapp (Vimy Resources) 

Discusses classification of existing mines, projects under development, and anticipated uranium supply.
 
Conversion Sub-Group
Chair: Nikko Collida (ConverDyn) 

Analyses future conversion supply capacities versus demand in this concentrated segment of the fuel cycle. 

Enrichment Sub-Group
Chair: Jean-Noël Lacroix (ORANO)
 
Focuses on key questions affecting this area of the fuel cycle including: supply-demand imbalance, underfeeding, tails re-enrichment, various trade issues. 

Secondary Supply Sub-Group
Chair: Rolf Kwasny (Consultant)
 
Examines key trends and the contributions of various sources of secondary supplies. 
 
Fabrication Sub-Group
Chair: Emilio Bobo (Enusa Industrias Avanzadas)

Discusses this dynamic part of the fuel market, analysing future prospects and the impacts of new developments on the fuel cycle as a whole. 

Sustainable Used Fuel Management  

Chair: Mikhail Baryshnikov (TENEX)
Deputy Chair: Cecile Evans (Orano)
Staff Director: Alina Constantin

The mission of this Group is to shape industry positions with a view to engaging in the international debate on sustainable management strategies for the back end of the fuel cycle. The Group also acts as a forum for experts to share good practices and major developments in used fuel management.

In 2018, four sub-groups were set up to help better focus activities on areas of importance to industry:
 

1. Lessons learnt from research reactor management of used fuel
2. Characterization of existing and emerging industrial infrastructures for used fuel management
3. Identifying innovative processes for managing used fuel and the constraints to their development
4. A long-term integrated step-wise system approach to used fuel management to mitigate risks and uncertainties

Joint sessions were also held with the Law and Waste Management & Decommissioning Groups to address cross-cutting issues
 
In 2019, the Group took part in the programme committee and presented papers at the IAEA Conference on the Management of Spent Fuel from Nuclear Power Reactors. It will continue to represent industry at international forums including on the Steering Committee for the IAEA’s Status and Trends in Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management report.
 

Transport

Chair: Kurtis Hinz (TAM International)
Deputy Chair: Tony Grange (Westinghouse)  
Staff Director: Serge Gorlin

This Group acts as a forum for communicating industry developments, exchanging leading practice, and for identifying and resolving issues relating to the shipment of nuclear material. The primary focus of the Group is to address commercial topics relating to the transport of front-end nuclear materials.
 
The Group is represented on the Transport Facilitation Working Group (TFWG), a multi-stakeholder initiative to preserve and open up new routes for the transport of radioactive material, and on the IAEA’s Transport Safety Standards Committee (TRANSSC). It also enjoys reciprocal relations with the World Nuclear Transport Institute.
 
Areas of interest: 

• Dialogue with the insurance community to improve options for nuclear transport
• Development of communication materials explaining why and how we transport radioactive material 
• Gathering information from members regarding experience with carriers and ports
• Discussing policies with intergovernmental agencies that could support more direct and diverse shipping options

INSAF 

Chair: Marcos Luis (ENUSA)
Staff Director: Stephen Tarlton
 
The International Network for Safety Assurance of Fuel Cycle Industries or INSAF transferred to become a World Nuclear Association Working Group in 2018. The mission of the Group is to exchange safety-related information in order to maintain and develop safety at nuclear fuel cycle facilities. It also encompasses informing the wider nuclear industry about safety relating to fuel cycle facilities, providing assurance to stakeholders, and input in the development of global nuclear safety standards. Areas of focus for INSAF are: safety regulation; safety design; safety control; training; accident/event Information; support systems between members in the event of an accident; public acceptance. 

Fuel Cycle Members' Forum
 

Chair: Anna Bryndza (UxC)   
Staff Director: Koji Kakehashi

The Fuel Cycle Members' Forum focuses on developments in nuclear fuel and trade, typically attracting 80-90 people to its meetings. Sessions consist of formal presentations and panel discussions as well as reports from Working Groups of the association. Topics are regularly surveyed from the participants of the forum, and discussed in the advisory panels to create agenda of the meetings.