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Erschienen in:

2012 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

1. Sustainable Development of Nuclear Energy and the Role of Fast Spectrum Reactors

verfasst von : Pavel Tsvetkov, Alan Waltar, Donald Todd

Erschienen in: Fast Spectrum Reactors

Verlag: Springer US

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Abstract

Energy, abundantly produced and wisely used, has always been needed for the advancement of civilization. Until the last few centuries, productivity was severely limited because only human and animal power were available as prime movers. By the early nineteenth century, wood burning, along with wind and water power, had considerably advanced the human capability to do work. Coal and then oil and natural gas sequentially replaced wood, water, and wind as the world’s primary energy sources.

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The term “spent” fuel often appears in the literature to depict irradiated fuel that is discharged from a nuclear reactor. We prefer to use the term “used” fuel because a very large amount of nuclear fuel (plus other valuable radioisotopes for other uses) still remains in such fuel.

“minor” actinides refers to all actinide isotopes other than uranium and plutonium.

Though the term “nuclear transmutation” has a broader meaning, in the context of this book we use the term “transmutation” to indicate the process of converting minor actinides found in used nuclear fuel to more stable elements that are more readily handled and disposed.

In the absence of a program to recycle used nuclear fuel, the discarded assemblies are “waste”. With a recycling program in place, the uranium and plutonium are extracted and reused, but the remaining unseparated products are waste.

The blanket is the region of the reactor containing fertile fuel.

The in-core conversion ratio of a breeder reactor has often been called the internal breeding ratio, despite the fact that it is generally less than one.

Bars above symbols are used to signify proper cross section averaging over the flux spectrum.

It should be noted that the expressions are purposely simplified in order to elucidate the basic concept. In reality, [η – (1 + L)] can be slightly smaller than unity for the breeding condition because of the fast fission effect in ²³⁸U.

The inverse of this term, P/M ₀ is also often quoted. This ratio is called fissile specific power.

Tails represents the depleted ²³⁸U that remains after completion of the enrichment process.

Partitioning and transmutation overview is contributed by M. Salvatores. The extended discussion is given in Chapter 7.

Transuranic isotopes all have atomic numbers greater than 92 (the atomic number of uranium).

Recycling and reprocessing are words often interchanged in the literature.

This perspective—which in reality represents a major attribute of nuclear energy—is woefully misunderstood by a large majority of the general public.

Minor actinides (described earlier) are essentially the same isotopes as found in TRU but without plutonium, which is considered a “major actinide” along with uranium.

Reprocessing losses are associated with inefficiencies in the reprocessing streams. Some reprocessing losses are inevitable, since 100% separation chemistry is never fully attainable. However, achieving losses down to the 0.1–0.2% range appear quite feasible.

The term “higher actinides” refers to actinides with progressively higher atomic numbers that are successively created by neutron capture.

The PUREX acronym stands for Plutonium—URanium Extraction. This is the reference aqueous nuclear reprocessing method for the recovery of uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel.

“Generation IV International Forum,” http://www.gen-4.org

Generation IV International Forum, GIF R&D Outlook for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems (August 21, 2009).

G. R. Keepin, Physics of Nuclear Kinetics, p. 4, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., Reading, MA (1965).

“Nuclear Power and Sustainable Development”, Ed. M. ElBaradei, April 2006, IAEA, http://www.iaea.org/books (2006).

T. Ellis, R. Petroski, P. Hejzlar, et al., “Traveling-Wave Reactors: A Truly Sustainable and Full-Scale Resource for Global Energy Needs”, Proceedings of the ICAPP10, June 13–17, 2010, Paper 10189, San Diego, CA (2010).

S. M. Feinberg, “Discussion Comment,” Rec. of Proc. Session B-10, ICPUAE, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland (1958).

M. J. Driscoll, B. Atefi, and D. D. Lanning, “An Evaluation of the Breed/Burn Fast Reactor Concept,” MITNE-229 (December 1979).

L. P. Feoktistov, “An Analysis of a Concept of a Physically Safe Reactor,” Preprint IAE-4605/4, in Russian (1988).

E. Teller, M. Ishikawa, and L. Wood, “Completely Automated Nuclear Power Reactors for Long-Term Operation,” Proceedings of the Frontiers in Physics Symposium, American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers Texas Meeting, Lubbock, TX (1995).

10.

H. van Dam, “The Self-stabilizing Criticality Wave Reactor,” Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems (ICENES 2000), p. 188, NRG, Petten, Netherlands (2000).

11.

S. P. Fomin, A. S. Fomin, Y. P. Mel’nik, V. V. Pilipenko, and N. F. Shul’ga, “Safe Fast Reactor Based on the Self-Sustained Regime of Nuclear Burning Wave,” Proceedings of Global 2009, Paper 9456, Paris, France (September 2009).

12.

N. Takaki and H. Sekimoto, “Potential of CANDLE Reactor on Sustainable Development and Strengthened Proliferation Resistance,” Progress in Nuclear Energy, 50 (2008) 114.

13.

J. Gilleland, C. Ahlfeld, D. Dadiomov, R. Hyde, Y. Ishikawa, D. McAlees, J. McWhirter, N. Myhrvold, J. Nuckolls, A. Odedra, K. Weaver, C. Whitmer, L. Wood, and G. Zimmerman, “Novel Reactor Designs to Burn Non-Fissile Fuel,” Proceedings of the 2008 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2008), ANS, Anaheim, CA, Paper 8319 (2008).

14.

M. Salvatores and J. Knebel, “Overview of Advanced Fuel Cycles for the 21st Century,” Jahrestagung Kerntechnik 2008, Hamburg (May 27–29, 2008).

15.

Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS) and Fast Reactors (FR) in Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles, A Comparative Study, OECD-NEA (2002).

16.

R. A. Wigeland, et al., “Separations and Transmutation Criteria to Improve Utilization of a Geological Repository”, Nuclear. Technology, 154 (2006) 95.

17.

H. Oigawa, et al., “Partitioning and Transmutation Technology in Japan and Its Benefit on High-Level Waste Management”, Proceedings of the International Conference on GLOBAL ’07, Boise (September 2007).

18.

K. Nishihara, et al., “Impact of Partitioning and Transmutation on LWR High-Level Waste Disposal”, Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 45(1) (2008) 84–97.CrossRef

Titel: Sustainable Development of Nuclear Energy and the Role of Fast Spectrum Reactors
verfasst von: Pavel Tsvetkov
Alan Waltar
Donald Todd
Verlag: Springer US
Buch: Fast Spectrum Reactors
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9571-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4419-9572-8

Copyright-Jahr: 2012
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9572-8_1