of support activities required both to provide raw fuel and
to recover and recycle the uranium and plutonium make up
—
_
what is known as the nuclear fuel cycle.
The AEC has
projected that over 4 million megawatts of nuclear capacity
will be installed between 1970 and 2020°,
Over the lifetimes
of these plants this installed capacity could result in a
cumulative flow of approximately 200 million kilograms of
plutonium through the nuclear fuel cycle.
Ff
In today's commercial reactors the plutonium is in
oxide form, Pud,”.
cycle,
At various facilities in the nuclear fuel
aerosols of Puld are released to the environment on
a@ routine basis.
In addition, there are numerous points in
the fuel cycle where accidents, particularly those associated
with’ fire or explosions, can release significant amounts of
Puls as aerosols that can be inhaled by man.
These small aerosol particles of Pu09 are highly radio+
active.
An appreciable fraction of the inhaled Puld
particles are trapped in the deep respiratory tissue of the
lung, where, because they are insoluble in human tissue,
~
4/
Updated (1970) Cost-Benefit Analvsis of the U. S. Breeder
Reactor Procream, USAEC, WASH-1184, January 1972, p.
Million megawatts
34.
(Mw) corresponds to 4000 nominal-siz
nuclear reactors -~ 1000 Mw each.
S/
Some advanced reactors of the future may use fuel in
Carbide and nitride,
rather than oxide,
forn.
Four