How P&T is to be implemented very much depends on what one wishes to achieve and this will vary from one country to another according to national policy. Nevertheless, three broad objectives can be identified:

• sustainable development of nuclear energy and waste minimization

• reduction (elimination) of MA inventory

• reduction (elimination) of TRU inventory as unloaded from LWRs

I n all cases, the objectives lead to a significant reduction of the burden on a geological repository (see Section 17.5). As possible ways of achieving these three objectives, the following three generic scenarios have been proposed.24 All of them go beyond the strategy of the ‘once-through’ fuel cycle (i. e. final disposal of once irradiated fuel) and imply fuel reprocessing.