Closing fuel cycle

Fast neutron reactors with a closed fuel cycle to achieve a durable production of electricity while minimising needs of uranium and the burden of long-lived radioactive waste. 

Nuclear waste. The nuclear waste disposal scheme remains to be finalized. The Yucca Mountain project in Nevada has made good advances recently, and when licensed it can provide a destination for the spent fuel accumulating at the plant sites. The development of a closed fuel cycle that involves the extraction and use of the fissile contents from the irradiated fuel would reduce the long-lived radioactivity associated with the waste to be sent to the repository. 

The Russian Federation has a closed fuel cycle policy which asks for all the spent fuel to be sent to the Mayak reprocessing plant. 

Some countries, including the Russian Federation and France, have chosen a closed fuel cycle meaning that the nuclear fuel is reprocessed in a dedicated plant, thus allowing the remaining Uraninm and Plutoninm to be incorporated into fresh fuel. 

In compliance with the closed fuel cycle concept accepted in Russia, SNF imloaded from Nuclear Submarines (NSs) with water-cooled reactors (WER) as well as SNF of nuclear icebreakers are forwarded to PA Mayak for reprocessing, fuel of liquid-metal coolant reactors, zirconimn-cladding fuel and damaged Spent Fuel... 

The situation has changed dramatically during the last 20 years. No closed fuel cycle of the type originally envisaged to be operational in the 1980s exists today. Although the closure of the nuclear fuel cycle has been experimentally demonstrated in France, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, it has not been demonstrated yet on a commercial scale. 

Far and away the development of nuclear power in Russia with fast neutron reactors is connected with the use in a closed fuel cycle primarily of power plutonium, produced in thermal reactors. However, availability of successfully operated BN-600 reactor and the construction in sight of BN-800 reactors permits to consider the... 

Solution of a strategic task of plutonium utilization under closed fuel cycle conditions is connected with BN-800 type reactor constmction and corresponding fuel infrastructure. 

Fast reactor inculcation upon the nuclear power is also necessary if any country is guided by utilization of closed fuel cycle, when reprocessed uranium and plutonium serve as the efficient fuel for the NPPs with different reactor types. 

Fast Reactors with a Closed Fuel Cycle as a Basis of Large-Scale... 

In terms of neutron spectrum and fuel cycle, there are two options of the SCWR the first is a thermal neutron reactor, and the second is an FR-based closed fuel cycle coupled with full actinide recycle based on advanced aqueous processing. Using last neutrons will be advantageous for achieving sustainability to be aimed for the Generation IV reactor because of their potential to produce at least as much fissile material as it consumes. 

As early as 1951, first nuclear electricity was produced at the experimental fast reactor EBR-I, but both this reactor and the E. Fermi Plant suffered accidents in the 1960s, and in the 1980s the USA stopped the construction of fast reactors and the work on a closed fuel cycle for nonproliferation reasons. 

Within the next 2 decades, when mostly thermal reactors will be built in the world, it is necessary to develop and bring in new fast reactors of natural safety with a closed fuel cycle, which can pave the way for large-scale nuclear power in the twenty-first century. 

This made it possible for Russia to initiate development (Adamov and Orlov 1992) of a fast reactor named lead-cooled fast reactor of natural safety (BREST), i.e., a pilot 300 MWe reactor (for trying out, e.g., equilibrium operation) and the first-of-the-kind 1,200 MWe power unit, with the R D effort to support it, aimed at demonstration of the new fast reactor and its closed fuel cycle within the normal period of 20 years. 

In the USA, even the first fast reactors, EBR-1 and EBR-2, ran on metallic fuel, i.e., U-Pu-Zr alloy and, with the experience gained, it was intended to use this fuel in the IFR - a fast power reactor with a closed fuel cycle (Wade and Chang 1988). 

With the fast reactor operating in a closed fuel cycle, the fuel quantity miming through the cycle is largely determined by the duration of the external (to the reactor) part of the CFG. Therefore, in order to reduce the time and costs required for cooling of irradiated fuel and for... 

Operation of fast reactors in a closed fuel cycle to bum the bulk of actinides and to transmute long-lived fission products in the course of their operation. 

The isotope burns out in the closed fuel cycle of a fast reactor, while plutonium is an integral and inseparable part of fuel (a catalyst for burning) and stays at all times incorporated in highly active materials. The international fuel cycle centers are expected to provide services to nuclear power complexes with fast reactors of the proposed type by producing only the first-core fuel and the makeup fuel, required for bringing NPPs into service, till the fuel cycle is closed. For the rest of the time, the plants will rely for their operation on the fuel they will breed, and will be independent from the foreign fuel suppliers. 

The solutions in physics and design of SFR and VHTR (HTGR) were discussed in the first part of the chapter. The second part of the chapter deals with the innovative approaches to development of naturally safe fast reactors with a closed fuel cycle, including LFR, which is treated as the main line in establishment of large-scale nuclear power. The other three reactor systems selected for the Generation IV Project are briefly discussed below. 

The GFR system is top ranked in sustainability because of its closed fuel cycle and excellent performance in actinide management. It is rated good in safety, economics, and in proliferation resistance and physical protection. It is primarily envisioned for missions in electricity... 

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