Nuclear fuel cycle echnology R&D, $15 million awarded

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $15 million to 34 research organizations as part of the department’s Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI). AFCI is the department’s nuclear energy research and development program supporting the long-term goals and objectives of the U.S. nuclear energy policy. The department says these projects will provide data and analyses to further U.S. nuclear fuel cycle technology development, meet the need for advanced nuclear energy production, and help to close the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States.

These one-year awards range in value from $200,000 to $2,000,000 and will support the efforts of university, national laboratory, and industry researchers to develop the technologies necessary to close the nuclear fuel cycle. Of the 34 organizations selected for awards, there are 20 project teams comprising 17 U.S. universities, ten national laboratories, and seven U.S. companies. The project teams will conduct innovative research and development across a full range of program areas including spent fuel separations technology, advanced nuclear fuel development, fast burner reactors, and advanced transmutation systems, advanced fuel cycle systems analysis, advanced computing and simulation, safeguards, and advanced waste forms.

The AFCI awards selected today are the result of rigorous review of competitive and innovative applications received in response to the department’s funding opportunity announcement in April 2008. This announcement adds to the more than $343 million DOE has already provided to universities, national labs, and industry since AFCI was first funded in 2004. As part of President George Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative, AFCI aims to accelerate development and deployment of advanced fuel cycle technologies to encourage clean energy development, responsibly manage nuclear waste, and reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation.