Research Article
An Economic Cost Assessment on HALEU Fuels for Small Modular Reactors
Table 1
Fuel prices and parameters used for HALEU economic study.
| | Fuel prices | Process | Cost | Unit | | Mining and milling | 68 | $/kg U3O8 | | Conversion | 105 | $/kgU | | Enrichment | 52 | $/SWU | | Fuel fabrication | 300 | $/kg |
| | NuScale economic parameters | Parameter | Value | Unit | | Thermal power, | 160 | MWt | | Electric power, | 45 | MWe | | Cycle burnup, | 12 | MWd/kgU | | Cycle length, | 24 | months | | Capacity factor, | 98.6 | % | | Cycle effective full-power days, | 720 | days | | Fuel loading mass, | 9213 | kg | | Average fresh load enrichment, | 4.17 | w/o | | Average levelized cost of electricity, LCOE | 86 | $/MWh | | Estimated levelized cost of fuel, LCOF | 16.5–17.5 | $/MWh |
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