“Assessment of strategy robustness under disruption of objective in dynamic fuel cycle studies”

The future of nuclear power depends on the interests and decisions. To take the relevant deep uncertainty into account, a new methodology of robustness analysis of fuel cycle strategies has been developed. The method has been applied to the French cycle, considering the future deployment of fast reactor as the pre-selected objective and an uncertain change, called disruption, towards a new objective: the minimization of transuranic inventories without fast reactor. The status of plutonium is contradictory in two cases. Two approaches of identifying robust strategies were tested, which correspond respectively to the static and adaptive robustness assessment. One identifies static strategies in a pre-disruption scenario, which achieve acceptable outcomes for both objectives. The other takes a trajectory pursuing the pre-selected objective and, in case of disruption, adapts it for the new objective. The comparison of two approaches indicates the temporality of adaptation relative to immediate actions under the uncertain disruption.