In that regard, we will establish joint expert groups to investigate means of increasing the amount of weapons-usable fissile material to be eliminated, and to recommend collaborative research and development efforts on advanced, proliferation-resistant nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies.
Technologies that reutilise these wastes can be referred to as cycle technologies.
"Advances in nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies may hold promise" for improving safety or lowering cost, according to the draft recommendations.
The goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of pyrochemical fuel cycle technologies as well as the state-of-the-art in Japanese technology development.
For example, the education ministry on Friday asked for just enough money, $369 million, to continue to maintain the Monju experimental fast breeder reactor and related nuclear fuel cycle technologies.
But "no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technologies … have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades".
Some of the advanced CCTs are: Combined Cycle Technologies, Underground Coal Gasification, Coal Bed Methane, Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell, Magneto Hydro Dynamics, Advanced Combustion Technologies, and Carbon Capture and Storage.
The goal of the systems engineering approach is to transparently define and justify the research and development (R&D) necessary to deploy sustainable fuel cycle technologies for a given set of national policy objectives.
