LMFR SNR

After the respective R D preliminaries, the nucleus of the fast reactor prototype SNR-300 developed towards realization in 1972, when international groupings of utilities and manufacturers of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany were founded in order to build the plant as Kalkar Nuclear Power Plant on the Rhine river banks close to the border with the Netherlands. Construction began early in 1973 after the concept and first erection license was granted in December 1972. In March 1991, the German Federal Minister of Research and Development announced the unconditional abandonment of the project after a thorough evaluation of the overall situation. 

The adverse political influence started in Germany as early as the late seventies, when the usefulness and the safety standards of nuclear power in general and SNR-300 in particular were questioned more and more by the Social Democratic Party, the initiator and until then strong supporter of this research project. 

Classification of SNR-300 The nuclear power plant SNR-300 was a prototype reactor project comparable to PHENIX in France, to the Prototype Fast Reactor PFR in Great Britain, and MONJU in Japan. PHENIX and PFR went into operation in 1974, and MONJU reached 

All these projects were designed for a power output of 250-300 MWe. They were supposed to form an important intermediate step on the way to fast breeder reactor power plants with a power output of 1000-1500 MWe. Such a power plant has been built in France already, SUPERPHENIX (SPX 1). 

PHENTX, SUPERPHENIX and PFR are so-called pool reactors, whereas the other three projects are loop reactors. In a pool reactor, the whole primary heat transfer system including main pumps and intermediate heat exchangers is integrated into the reactor vessel (pool), while the loop reactors have parallel primary sodium heat transfer circuits (loops) with the main heat transfer components external to the reactor vessel. The secondary heat transfer system, installed between primary system and water/steam system for safety reasons, is practically identical in both cases. It also consists of three parallel circuits. Live steam conditions and the achievable efficiency are very similar in all plants 500°C, 165 bar, 40%. These are close to the conditions of coal-fired stations. 

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