Red-Impact: A European Research Programme to assess the Impact of Partitioning and Transmutation on Final Nuclear Waste Disposal

It is the objective of the EU-funded ‘Red-Impact’ project to analyse the impact of partitioning, transmutation and waste reduction technologies on the final nuclear waste disposal. The partnership of 25 organisations is originating from European nuclear industry, waste agencies, research centres and universities. The system studies focus on a realistic evolution of P&T technologies and advanced fuel cycles which can be deployed incrementally on an industrial scale as well as on future developments such as reactors of the third and fourth generation (Gen III & Gen IV) and Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS). Evaluating actinide minimization systems and industrialised P&T in general requires an assessment of relevant nuclear fuel cycles especially with regard to the economic, environmental and societal advantages/disadvantages (i.e. the sustainability of the fuel cycles). Thus, a set of indicators has been derived for each of these areas. The results are analysed using the multi-criterion analysis approach which allows the importance of each of the indicators to be specified.