Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
1997 International RERTR Meeting

Research Reactor Fuel Cycle: Front- and Back-end

G. J. Gruber and H. Mueller
NUKEM Nuklear
Fuel Cycle Services
D-63754 Alzenau
Germany

NUKEM Nuklear GmbH

- Newly founded on January 1st, 1997
- Our customers were informed about these organizational changes
- Nuklear = German spelling for 'nuclear'
- NUKEM Group: international engineering and plant construction (nuclear-/non-)
- Concentrates all nuclear activities of NUKEM under one roof worldwide
- Same staff with more or less same responsibilities
- Idea: act more synergetic and serve more effectively our customers needs
- NUKEM headquaters: Alzenau, Bavaria, Germany
- Turnover: ~ USD 250 million with 500 employees
- Changes for the RR department: new company name + new logo

ABSTRACT

Front-end:

Sources for a safe supply of uranium for Research Reactors has been secured beyond the year 2000. Stocks of all different kinds and forms of uranium are available in the market. The quality ranges from fresh and slightly irradiated to reprocessed uranium.

Back-end:

Since US-DOE settled its new 10 (13) years Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Return Policy ('Fuel Return Policy - FRP') in May 1996 several return shipments from overseas were made without notable disturbances. Since then, Research Reactor operators seem to rely on this route and will probably return as much spent fuel as possible in this given time frame. National and international effects of this successful US policy are considered.