The IAEA s International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) was established in 2000 with the goal to ensure a sustainable nuclear energy supply to meet the energy needs of the 21st century. The INPRO activities on global and regional nuclear energy scenarios provide newcomers and mature nuclear countries alike with better understanding of options for making a collaborative transition to future sustainable nuclear energy systems. Collaborative project GAINS (Global Architectures of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems Based on Thermal and Fast Reactors Including a Closed Fuel Cycle) developed an internationally verified framework for assessing such transition scenarios. The follow-up collaborative project Synergistic Nuclear Energy Regional Group Interactions Evaluated for Sustainability (SYNERGIES) is to identify and evaluate mutually beneficial collaborative scenarios and the related driving forces and impediments for achieving globally sustainable nuclear energy systems. More specifically, SYNERGIES will help identify short-term and medium-term collaborative actions that may pave a way to longer- term sustainability. Based on the intermediate outputs of SYNERGIES, this paper presents some results of the assessment of synergistic transition scenarios to sustainable nuclear energy systems. The study explores such scenarios under uncertainties in the scale of nuclear energy demand and in nuclear power structure. The study focuses on "low" scenario with possible delays in moderate and high demand growth. It demonstrates a possible option to resolve the problem of spent nuclear fuel accumulation in the nearest term that is based on the use of the existing reactor technologies (LWRs) and fast reactors with MOX fuel. The study quantitatively shows that synergistic approach to nuclear fuel cycle has a potential of offering a 'win-win' collaborative strategy to both, technology holders and technology users on their joint way to future sustainable nuclear energy systems.
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