NESC1065 REFCO83.

1. NAME OR DESIGNATION OF PROGRAM:  REFCO83.

3. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM OR FUNCTION

REFCO83 utilizes a discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis procedure to calculate batch, cycle, and lifetime levelized average nuclear fuel cycle costs. The DCF analysis establishes an energy "cost" associated with the fuel by requiring that the revenues from the sale of energy be adequate to pay the required return on outstanding capital, to pay all expenses  including taxes, and to retire the outstanding investment to zero by the end of the economic life of the set of fuel investments. The program uses reactor mass flow information together with individual  fuel cost parameters and utility capital structure and money costs to calculate levelized costs cumulatively through any batch or cycle.

4. METHOD OF SOLUTION

A fuel cycle cost component is considered to be any fuel material purchase, processing cost, or discharge material credit in the complete fuel cycle. The costs for each individual component, i.e. uranium, enrichment, etc., may either be expensed or capitalized for tax purposes or, in the case of waste disposal, the  cost may also be made proportional to power production. To properly  account for the effect of income taxes, all calculations in REFCO83  are done using "then" current dollars, including price escalations caused by inflation. The database used for the default values for REFCO83 was taken from the Nuclear Energy Cost Data Base.

5. RESTRICTIONS ON THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PROBLEM:  The maximum number of fuel batches is 120.

6. TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

A typical REFCO83 calculation requires about  one second of CPU time.

7. UNUSUAL FEATURES OF THE PROGRAM:

8. RELATED AND AUXILIARY PROGRAMS

REFCO83 is an outgrowth of the original REFCO program, written in the early 1970s, and later releases including the POWERCO (NESC Abstract 340) and REFCO8 (NESC  Abstract 885) programs.

10. REFERENCES

- U.S. Department of Energy, Nuclear Energy Cost Data Base:
  A Reference Data Base for Nuclear and Coal-Fired Power Plant
  Generation Cost Analysis,
  DOE/NE-0044, October 1982.

- J.G. Delene and O.W. Hermann:
  REFCO83 User's Manual
  NUREG/CR-3800 (ORNL/TM-9186) (June 1984).

11. MACHINE REQUIREMENTS:

13. OPERATING SYSTEM UNDER WHICH PROGRAM IS EXECUTED:

14. OTHER PROGRAMMING OR OPERATING INFORMATION OR RESTRICTIONS:

15. NAME AND ESTABLISHMENT OF AUTHORS

         J.G. Delene and O.W. Hermann
         Oak Ridge National Laboratory
         P.O. Box Y
         Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831

source program   mag tapeREFCO-83 Source Program (FTN)              SRCTP
test-case data   mag tapeSample Problem Input + Control Information DATTP
test-case output mag tapeSample Problem Output                      OUTTP
source program   mag tapeREFCO-83 Source Program (FTN)              SRCTP
test-case data   mag tapeSample Problem Input + Control Information DATTP
test-case output mag tapeSample Problem Output                      OUTTP
report                   NUREG/CR-3800 (ORNL/TM-9186) (June 1984)   REPPT