Year
1961
Abstract
The preceding speaker's picture of the fuel cycle provides a good starting point for this paper in that it outlines the areas in which private industry is now participating and emphasizes the absence of any commercial endeavor in the reprocessing of spent fuel. At the present time, the Davison Chemical Division of W. R. Grace & Co. is active in the area of the preparation of feed materials, including thorium oxide and metal, uranium oxide and metal, and alloys, with extensive activities in the so-called cold scrap reprocessing. In December of 1959, the Davison Chemical Division of W. R. Grace & Co. and five utilities, known subsequently as LRG (Industrial Reprocessing Group), set out to establish the technical and economic feasibility of constructing and operating a private plant to reprocess spent nuclear fuels. The Bechtel Corporation was engaged to perform necessary engineering and cost estimates for the plant. Weinrich Associates of Washington assisted in the preparation of process flowsheets. AM&F contributed to the design and costing of mechanical treatment facilities. The AEC staff cooperated fully in the study by making available their extensive technical and production experience for review by the IRG study teams.