Demand for TRU nuclide cross-sections from the view point of TRU production and radiotoxicity

The environmental load reduction of nuclear energy is required in Japan, from the view point of public acceptance. Here, the long-term radiotoxicity of radioactive wastes is dominated by trans-uranium (TRU) nuclides. We evaluated the effects of differences between the nuclear data libraries of heavy-metal- nuclide cross-section on the radiotoxicity of LWR spent fuels. In this study, the MVP-BURN code and the JENDL-4.0u nuclear data library were used as a burn-up calculation code and a reference nuclear data library, moreover, only a heavy metal cross section of interest was replaced to JEFF-3.2 or ENDF/B-VII.1 to evaluate the effect of difference between libraries for each nuclides. The calculation results revealed that the productions of Pu-238, Am-241 and Cm-244 with JEFF-3.2 were 8% larger than those with JENDL-4.0u and ENDF/B-VII.1. The thermal energy capture reaction of Pu-238 and 1.356eV resonance capture reaction of Am-243 have a large impact on the radiotoxicity of Pu-238 and Cm-244, consequently, these cross sections should be improved.