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NUCLEARSPACE MESSAGE BOARD (ACTIVE) -> OPPOSITION MOVEMENTS, MYTHS & SNAKE OIL -> Swedish antis & hypocrisy
Post Info TOPIC: Swedish antis & hypocrisy
10kBq jaro

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 This article does a pretty good job of explaining the technology & related issues -- probably answers whatever remaining questions you may have....


Heavy-Metal Nuclear Power
American Scientist 522 Volume 92; Issue 6
1 November 2004
Loewen, Eric P


Could an unconventional coolant enable reactors to burn radioactive waste and produce both electric power and hydrogen?


Thirty years have passed since the last nuclear reactor was ordered in the United States-yet the future of nuclear power remains a national and international public-policy issue. Early in this year's presidential campaign, the long-term disposition of nuclear waste once again became a focus of political and legal debate. Meanwhile the world's energy appetite continues to grow, and many leaders worry over the environmental and geopolitical costs of relying on fossil fuels for energy. Last year an interdisciplinary study organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that the "nuclear option" must be kept on the table and explored, with careful attention given to crucial economic and environmental questions.


Away from the public spotlight, scientists and engineers have continued to develop new nuclear-power technologies in the hope that we can build reactors that are safe, efficient, affordable and reliable-and that resist weapons proliferation and reduce hazardous waste. It's a tall order. My colleagues and I have studied one of several current technologies that appear to have these attributes and that have been chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy for continued research and development. Like some others, our concept is a newer version of a reactor technology that was not widely adopted as electrical utilities and national power ministries chose designs during the 20th century. Some new science and engineering, and a new emphasis on the longer-term issues of waste disposal and resource depletion, suggest it may be time to reconceive the metal-cooled reactor. With a nod, then, to the coming-of-age days of the last generation of reactor design, we call this technology "heavy metal nuclear power."


Metal-Cooled Reactors: Fast and Hot


Most of us associate tall towers and puffs of steam with nuclear power plants because cooling is an essential part of nuclear-power generation. Water-cooled reactors, used throughout the U.S., are of a class called thermal reactors. A reactor can also be cooled with metallic fluid; this is a fast reactor. Back in the 1950s, the U.S. led the world in the development of reactors that were cooled with liquid metal - at that time, either with sodium or with a mixture of sodium and potassium that was eutectic, having the lowest melting temperature possible. Using this approach, the U.S. in the 1950s built the Experimental Breeder Reactor, the first nuclear power plant to produce usable electricity, and the reactor aboard the USS Seawolf, the second nuclear-powered submarine in the U.S. Navy.


The U.S. explored the use of lead (a heavy metal) and another alloy, lead-bismuth eutectic or LBE, as the coolant in the early metal-cooled reactors, but ultimately elected to use sodium because of its superior ability to transfer heat and compatibility with other materials in a reactor. In those early years, liquid metal-cooled reactors were anticipated to play an important role in "breeding" nuclear fuel. But as the supply of uranium increased and its price dropped, interest in liquid metal-cooled reactors in the U.S. waned. Currently there are no metal-cooled reactors operating in the United States.


The Soviets went further, pioneering LBE-cooled-reactor fission to produce energy. The Soviet Union's heavy-metal program began in the 1950s with test reactors and culminated with a reactor used in the titanium-hulled Alpha class of attack submarines, the fastest in the world. During their current economic transition, the Russians are seeking to adapt this Cold War military technology for commercial application. Lead cooled fast reactors, for example, have been mentioned in connection with Russia's controversial nuclear cooperation with Iran. A new Russian LBE-cooled reactor design called BREST would have a projected power output of 1,200 megawatts of electrical capacity, comparable to larger reactors in the U.S. and capable of meeting the electricity demands of more than 900,000 U.S. homes. Russia's push to bring fast-reactor technology into the marketplace has sparked renewed interest in heavy metal-cooled reactors in the U.S.


What is different about fast-reactor technology? These reactors operate at higher temperatures than water-cooled reactors, and the neutrons involved in the fission reactions inside the reactor are traveling at relatively high speeds. A reactor running in this way can consume its own waste and also waste from other reactors. In technical terms, a heavy-metal fission reactor is a sustainable energy source. Nuclear power's political Achilles heel is the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel; the next generation of nuclear power technology must incorporate a solution to this problem.


Toward Safer Nuclear Power


All energy on Earth, with some very small exceptions, originates in one of two fundamental reactions-fusion, where two small atomic nuclei come together (used by stars throughout the galaxies), or fission, the splitting of large nuclei. Fission takes place in the 103 U.S. nuclear power plants. Electricity, locomotion and other kinds of useful energy are derived from these atomic reactions. Wind energy, for example, is possible because of fusion inside the Sun, which heats our atmosphere. In a nuclear power plant, heat produced by fission turns turbines that generate electricity.


Fission is accomplished by bombarding certain heavy atomic nuclei with neutrons - neutral-charge particles that come from the nucleus itself - and splitting the nuclei, resulting in the release of more neutrons, gamma radiation and atom fragments, which all can be converted into heat energy with an end product of electricity. The by-products of these reactions are short- and long lived radioactive isotopes, referred to as fission products, which constitute nuclear waste or spent fuel.


The explosive power of a nuclear bomb comes from a rapidly growing chain reaction. The goal in nuclear power generation, of course, is quite different: a self-sustaining, controlled fission reaction. To achieve control we need to regulate the number of neutrons in the system - to constrain the energy and speed of the neutrons so that they react with the nuclear fuel inside the reactor. Secondary materials interact with the neutrons to moderate or slow them to a desired spectrum, or range of energy levels. Some secondary materials, such as control rods, can stop the neutrons by permanently absorbing them. Because fission is more probable when uranium235 is bombarded with slow neutrons, water-cooled reactors use materials of low atomic mass so that the neutrons transfer a significant fraction of their energy in collisions. The carbon in graphite and the hydrogen atoms in ordinary water meet these requirements. The kinetic energy gained by the neutrons in fission is gained by the molecules of the moderator and carried off by water.


A lead-bismuth eutectic is very different from a light-water reactor coolant. Higher specific heat, higher density, lower neutron absorption and higher scattering, and high boiling point are among its material properties. These properties give the lead-bismuth eutectic a few safety advantages over pressurized-water reactors, which helped make "meltdown" part of our popular vocabulary. A heavy-metal liquid's high boiling point and heat of vaporization dramatically reduces or eliminates the possibility of coolant loss and subsequent catastrophic core melting.


The attributes of lead - an abundant metal that itself happens to be produced by the natural radioactive decay of the uranium-actinium-thorium series of elements-are particularly attractive. As everyone knows, water turns to vapor at 100 degrees Celsius at normal atmospheric pressure. Light-water reactors are pressurized to 2,000 pounds per square inch, so they can operate at 300 degrees. Under atmospheric pressure, lead will remain liquid and not boil until it reaches 1,750 degrees. A lead-cooled system can be operated at atmospheric pressures, preventing common accidents that could take place in a light-water reactor.


Anyone who has had a dental x ray also knows that lead's density blocks radiation. In a reactor it can both cool and absorb gamma rays, reducing the need to surround the reactor with additional bulky shielding.


Finally, although lead is toxic to human beings, it is not consumed in the reactor. It is "purified"-its metallic impurities removed-during operation, and there is no need for refilling or disposal. At the end of a reactor lifetime-possibly up to 30 years-the lead will freeze around the reactor core inside the vessel, encapsulating the core to provide resistance to corrosion. There are many lead seals from ancient Rome that exist today.


Designs for these reactors incorporate many additional safety features. In our design, a passive residual heat-removal system would limit the maximum temperature of the LBE to about 600 degrees below its boiling point. In an LBE reactor, the nuclear fuel is highly soluble in the coolant, which in turn has a density higher than the nuclear fuel; together these attributes can naturally shut down fission reactions. An interesting possibility is a reactor system that operates totally on natural circulation-no mechanical pumps to fail! A natural-circulation system provides unique passive safety features and autonomous operability characteristics for deployment in developing countries. Additionally, in contrast with sodium, there are no energetic reactions with air, water or concrete, reducing the possibility of fires.


On average, about three neutrons are produced when a large atom is split. These ejected neutrons leave the fission site at nearly the speed of light. To sustain a fission reaction in, say, a U.S. nuclear-power plant, the neutrons must be slowed down by 10,000 times-to speeds around 8,000 kilometers per hour. This neutron-deceleration process, referred to as "moderation" or "thermalizing," is accomplished by collisions with the hydrogen atoms in water molecules; like billiard balls, the atoms absorb energy from the neutrons. After about 16 collisions, a neutron is slow enough to react with the next fissile atom. If you can imagine an ejected neutron rocketing into the Earth's solar orbit at 71 million kilometers per hour, making an orbital lap in just 13 hours, you can get a sense of how important these collisions are in applying the brakes.


A fast reactor is said to produce "hard" neutrons, neutrons that maintain a high velocity as they strike the large atoms of lead. (So you might say that heavy metal is a "hard core" nuclear technology, not so different from the music named for it.) High-velocity neutrons explode fissile atoms into two major fragments rather than absorbing a neutron. The result is transmutation: A large radioactive atomic species is converted to a smaller, less dangerous element or even into stable atoms.


What About Waste?


Back when President Elsenhower presented his postwar "Atoms for Peace" plan, the use of fissionable material for power generation and other peaceful activities was seen as a way to avert nuclear disaster. Today, 17 percent of the world's electricity comes from about 440 nuclear power plants.


Current world energy politics focus on concerns about oil reserves and supply, climate change and the quest for sustainable technologies. At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, many participants voiced concerns that nuclear power is not sustainable because the supply of uranium is finite, and nuclear power generation imposes a large waste-disposal burden on future generations.


In fact, the longevity of the world's available nuclear-fuel resources, counting only the conventional geological reserves of uranium, is estimated to be more than 1,000 years at current rates of consumption. Whether one sees this as a short or a long period is a matter of perspective; in either case, it would be advantageous to find reactor concepts that extend the resource base and also decrease the waste burden faced by future generations. Nuclear power itself will always be a high-density energy source, one that produces a large quantity of energy relative to the resources consumed.


The optimal reactor technology, if it is economically and technically feasible, is one that directly addresses the waste problem. As the first generation of nuclear power plants come to the end of their useful lives, the high-level radioactive waste from power generation in the U.S. remains in temporary storage awaiting a long-term solution. One solution is transmutation.


If transmutation sounds a bit like alchemy, it is. In their attempt to make gold, the alchemists limited themselves to chemical reactions, which manipulate only the electrons in an atom, not the protons and neutrons of the nucleus. To transmute or "burn" spent nuclear fuel requires altering the nucleus itself. It has a track record somewhat better than alchemy's.


Transmutation made its debut shortly after Sir James Chadwick in 1932 discovered the neutron. Striking a radioactive uranium atom with a neutron transformed the atom into a new element, plutonium, after two subsequent radioactive decays. The new atom had a shorter half-life than the original atom. In other types of transmutation, a heavy nucleus explodes in half, or fissions, into two lighter nuclei.


About 95 percent of spent reactor fuel waste consists of uranium, which does not require long-term permanent storage, since its radioactivity is comparable to that of natural material in the Earth's crust. However, mixed with this uranium are short-lived radioactive fission products (isotopes of antimony and xenon, for example) and long-lived radioactive elements with a higher atomic number than uranium called transuranics (the first four are isotopes of neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium).


Currently, without separation of the three components, 100 percent of the spent fuel must, by law, be considered high-level waste. The U.S. nuclear power industry will by 2015 have generated approximately 70,000 tons of this high-level nuclear waste, which will contain about 600 tons of plutonium. This waste, with its recoverable energy content, currently awaits disposition at Yucca Mountain, a geological repository not yet open and still entangled in political and legal questions. Fast reactors such as the heavy-metal kind have the potential to reduce the volume and longevity of waste requiring permanent storage at Yucca Mountain. Burning neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium (fuel) in a heavy-metal reactor is possible because of all the fast neutrons careening around the core.


It's not, of course, quite so simple. A treatment facility for spent nuclear fuel would first need to be established so that the short-lived fission products (non-fuel), uranium and transuranics could be separated from one another. The fission products and transuranics would then be fabricated into a metallic fuel (mixed with thorium and zirconium), assembled into fuel bundles and loaded back into the heavy-metal reactor. A cross section of such a reactor is shown in Figure 5. Inside the core, using fast neutrons, the transuranics are fissioned. They are consumed to generate energy. The heat from fission is removed by the flowing heavy metal, which has the viscosity of a cup of coffee. A heat exchanger submerged inside the reactor vessel transfers this heat to carbon dioxide, which spins the turbines that in turn produce electricity.


Burning Waste for Energy


Nuclear-waste burning itself is not a simple matter; otherwise it might be going on every day. Instead, nuclear power generation is now based on a concept called the once-through fuel cycle, which avoids the costs associated with the reprocessing or recycling of fuel. The costs of partitioning and transmuting fuel, along with the short-term environmental, safety and proliferation risks, have been considered too high.


My colleagues and I at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory are not economists. Although we are aware of the complex economic and environmental dimensions of the challenge ahead, we have looked at the issues surrounding future nuclear technologies from a technical and environmental standpoint, taking the long view that scientists can.


Traditionally, nuclear reactors employ a large weight fraction of fertile material - material that, when hit by a neutron, transforms into a nuclear fuel. Examples are thorium, which "breeds" uranium, or uranium, which becomes plutonium. Isotope numbers explain how: Thorium-232 captures a neutron and decays to become the fissionable isotope uranium-233. Uranium-238, the predominant component in conventional nuclear fuel, breeds plutonium-239. These fertile materials compensate for the depletion of fissile fuel by continuing to feed a reactor; they simplify reactor control and give an operator acceptable feedback.


When the fuel contains fertile isotopes, however, there is a significant reduction in the amount of waste that can be burned as the reactor is running. This is because as some of the transuranic elements (those with atomic numbers larger than uranium's) are incinerated, others are produced. If the fertile material is completely eliminated by, for example, substituting all waste, the performance of the reactor changes drastically over the fuel's lifespan (usually about 18 months). Reactor control becomes more difficult, and there are economic penalties, since the reactor fuel is used up rapidly. There is a tradeoff, therefore, between fertile-fuel loading and maximizing waste burning. Fortunately, this trade-off can be optimized with a heavy-metal reactor.


Figure 6 shows the transuranic isotopes present in today's spent fuel. Four transuranics of interest are neptunium-237, plutonium-238, americium241 and curium-242. Isotope number is important: An atom's half-life and its ability to fission or absorb neutrons can vary by orders of magnitude between isotopes and depends strongly on the energy of the neutrons used in fission. When a nucleus is hit with and absorbs a fast neutron, two things can take place: fission or absorption.


An atom that absorbs a neutron remains the same element but becomes a different isotope; it has the same number of protons but one more neutron. The newly formed isotope is usually less stable, thanks to the extra neutron in the nucleus, and subsequently decays into a more stable element by beta decay, the emission of an electron, a gamma ray and a particle called a neutrino. (In this particular type of beta decay the neutrino is actually an "antiparticle" called an antineutrino, but this does not matter for our purposes.) It may alternatively decay by alpha emission (releasing an alpha particle: two protons and two neutrons stuck together), becoming an element two atomic numbers below the original element.


The fast neutrons used in a heavy metal reactor greatly enhance the probability of fission over absorption, increasing the production of fission products - a net destruction of transuranics. Thus the transmutation of high-level waste produces a type of waste dominated by fission products, which are more radioactive but have shorter half-lives. This waste requires safeguarding for 300 years, compared with the 100,000-plus years now required for the waste from light-water reactors. Whether or not we believe we can build structures that will last for 100,000 years, the human race can have some confidence that our structures will stand 300 years, given that the landscape is full of human structures built with 17th-century materials and still standing.


<CONTINUED on next post>



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10kBq jaro

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 <CONTINUATION of article in preceding post>


Neutron Physics


By now you may be curious about just how a heavy-metal reactor would "burn" transuranic elements. The physics of the process varies slightly from one element to another, so I'll provide a quick overview of four important transuranics.


Neptunium (abbreviated Np) is element 93, the first transuranic element. When neptunium-237, with a halflife of about 2 million years, absorbs a neutron, it becomes 238Np. 238Np has a short half-life of about 2 days. The 238Np decays into a plutonium isotope, 238Pu. That is, a neutron in the 238Np nucleus turns into a proton by beta decay, ejecting an electron, a gamma ray and a neutrino. The newly formed 238Pu then absorbs a neutron to become 239Pu, which easily fissions when hit by yet another neutron. A good rule of thumb is that isotopes having odd numbers of neutrons are 10 to 20 times more likely to fission, rather than absorbing a thermal neutron, than are even-numbered isotopes of the same element. This is how neptunium-237, with a 2-million-year halflife, is burned in a heavy-metal reactor and transmuted into very short-lived radioactive elements such as cesium, iodine and krypton, with half-lives of 10 to 30 years. [correction :  Pu-238 has ~same fast fission x-section as Pu-239]


Plutonium. The next pesky element of concern in high-level waste, well known and irrationally feared, is element 94, plutonium, of which 238Pu is an isotope. The plutonium produced in a light-water reactor contains many different isotopes. Plutonium-239 is an excellent reactor fuel for making electricity. The odd-numbered isotopes of plutonium fission easily into smaller, very short-lived nuclei. The even numbered isotopes absorb a neutron to become odd-numbered and then fission. That's how radioactive plutonium-238, with a half-life of 88 years, can be burned up while producing energy to power our society.


Americium. The next element, with atomic number 95, is americium, widely used in home smoke detectors. In nuclear waste the 241Am comes from the beta decay of another plutonium isotope, 241Pu. Spent fuel from light water reactors contains an appreciable fraction of 241Pu; it is about 20 percent of the plutonium, which makes up about 1 percent of spent fuel. The 241Pu has a half-life of 14 years. Assuming the first heavy-metal reactor might come on line in 2025, the spent fuel stocks in the U.S. would have an appreciable content of 241Am as a result of 241Pu decay before the transmutation process is implemented.


When americium-241 is hit with a neutron, 80 percent turns into 242Am and 20 percent into 242mAm, where the "m" stands for metastable. Metastable americium-242 has a long half-life (140 years) and a tendency to build up inside a reactor core. However, this is the most fissionable isotope we have. If it is hit with a neutron, 242mAm will break in half, yielding a significant increase in reactor power. In addition, a small fraction of 242mAm decays into 238Np and is eventually fissioned as explained above. What this all means is that loading a core with a high content of what society considers nuclear waste (some of which is 241Am) results in better reactor performance-the ability to produce energy over a longer core lifetime. As an analogy, it would be similar to filling your tank with a gasoline whose fuel efficiency increases as you drive, allowing you to motor farther before the tank is exhausted.


The 80 percent of 242Am produced from 241Am has a half-life of just 16 hours and beta-decays into curium242. Curium-242, with a 163-day halflife, forms lighter plutonium-238 by alpha decay. 238Pu is three times better at fissioning than 242Cm and also, as mentioned above, can absorb a neutron to become 239Pu with eight times the ability to fission. Thus, bombarding 241Am produces a different atom that is almost 10 times easier to fission. Returning to the gas-tank analogy, this is comparable to raising the fuel's efficiency by a factor of ten. If the reactor is designed to accommodate this, the 241Am can contribute to increasing the performance of the reactor.


Curium. The final major transuranic element group is curium. In spent fuel, most of this element occurs as242Cm with a 163-day half-life, decaying into one isotope of plutonium or another. However, through neutron absorption the curium acquires a higher isotopic number. Isotopes such as curium-243, -244 or -245 can either decay or release energy through fission. The longestlived curium isotope has a half-life of 29 years.


A heavy-metal reactor swarms with energetic neutrons, using these three major transmutation pathways to consume what is now considered waste in the spent fuel from light-water reactors. In this vision spent nuclear fuel becomes a source of high-quality "recycled" fuel for the production of useful energy, meanwhile converting a waste stream with 10,000- to 100,000year half-lives into a waste stream with 10- to 100-year half-lives. Our work has shown that 660 kilograms of transuranics would be burned annually in one core producing 1,800 megawatts of thermal power. (In conventional nuclear power production, about one-third of the thermal power produced in the core is turned into usable electricity; using that rule, the power production of such a plant would be about 600 megawatts electric.)


Reduce, Reuse, Recycle-Safely


Just as household recycling requires separating paper from plastic from glass, recycling of spent nuclear fuel requires partitioning the types of waste so that uranium, transuranics and shortlived fission products can be dealt with separately. Also as with household recycling, this is not a trivial matter, and it is important to keep the partitioning process safe and secure. Yet waste partitioning has been safely demonstrated in the U.S., France and Britain.


Once the transuranics are isolated, they can be burned in a once-through fuel cycle using a heavy-metal reactor. Another approach would involve a multiple-pass fuel cycle in which the heavy metal reactor's spent fuel is additionally recycled. In the latter scheme, additional "burnable" material is obtained, namely the long-lived transuranics that are generated in situ during heavy-metal reactor operation.


A once-through cycle provides a significant reduction in the spent fuel's transuranics inventory, though not complete elimination, and a dilution of the plutonium isotopes. This is an important feature in preventing nuclear-weapons proliferation, because such transmutation would make it extremely difficult to obtain or isolate weaponsgrade materials. This option, however, does not decrease the radiotoxicity or decay heat in the final package that initially exits the plant en route to disposal. The long-lived radioactivity has been converted into high-energy shortlived waste. From an environmentalimpact perspective, there remains room for improvement.


In a multi-pass fuel-cycle scheme, however, it is possible to achieve a 99.9-percent reduction in the overall long-lived transuranics-waste inventory that would require permanent disposition and storage in a repository. Thus the burden on the planned Yucca Mountain repository would be greatly reduced. Additionally, multi-pass recycling of the transuranics present in both light-water and heavy-metal reactors' spent fuel would reduce the radiotoxicity of the consolidated final waste stream to a level similar to what a comparable amount of uranium ore would emit in 300 to 600 years. Therefore, the multi-recycling option is a preferable choice if society does not want to build additional repositories.


My colleagues and I at the Idaho National Laboratory collaborated with nuclear engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in investigating four design concepts for heavy-metal reactors, one for producing electricity with a once-through fuel cycle and three for waste burning.


We studied the once-through fuel cycle concept first. Of the alternatives, this cycle produced cheaper electricity because there are no costs associated with fuel reprocessing and recycling. Today's reactors operate this way partly because it is most economical for power generation. This reactor design has a harder (faster) neutron spectrum that affords some in-core breeding and excellent safety characteristics.


Next, we looked at a fertile-free transuranics burner. The goal of this reactor concept is to achieve maximum burning of transuranic waste. The fuel, made of transuranics and the mineral zirconium, is burned in the core, then reprocessed to remove fission products. The leftover transuranics are combined in new fuel with new transuranics and placed back in the reactor core. In our model system, the recycling of fuel is usually done in 18-month increments but can be extended to longer residence times in a heavy-metal reactor. This concept has a security advantage: The residual plutonium being recycled in the spent fuel has a higher number of neutron-absorbing even-numbered isotopes, thus making it virtually impossible to produce fissile material for weapons.


A third concept is the fertile-free minor transuranics burner. A heavy-metal reactor would be designed to maximize the rate at which minor transuranics (curium-242, americium-241, and neptunium-237) are destroyed, without destroying any plutonium. The plutonium from spent light-water-reactor fuel is separated and burned in a lightwater reactor while the minor transuranics are burned in the heavy-metal reactor. Because of its slower neutrons, a light-water reactor can burn plutonium but not minor transuranics. In this hybrid concept, fewer heavy-metal reactors would be needed to burn existing and future minor transuranics. In light-water-reactor spent fuel, 0.8 percent is plutonium and only 0.1 percent is minor transuranics.


Finally, we can imagine a fertile transuranic-burning reactor with a dual mission: to produce economical electricity and to burn transuranics from spent light-water-reactor fuel. As I mentioned above, conventional reactors use fertile elements; so does this concept, which would employ thorium. Although thorium exists mainly as isotope 232, which does not fission well, when hit with a neutron this isotope decays to uranium (specifically the isotope 233U, which fissions as well as the commonly used 235U).


The addition of fertile thorium creates supplemental fuel and improves reactor performance and operational stability. Furthermore, as Mujid S. Kazimi noted in these pages ("Thorium Fuel for Nuclear Energy," SeptemberOctober 2003), there exist large reserves of thorium, which is three times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust. The drawback in our concept is that the thorium takes up room where the transuranics reside, so that more heavy-metal reactors would need to be built to burn the same amount of transuranics.


Of the concepts we have analyzed, the two fertile-free reactors have the best potential for burning old and existing radioactive waste; for example, a 700-megawatt-thermal modular reactor could burn 0.2 metric tons of transuranics per year. This is two-thirds the annual waste output of a large 3,000megawatt (thermal) light-water reactor.


How many heavy-metal reactors would be needed to break down the transuranics produced up to now? Depending on which concept is employed, the job would take 35 to 50 of these small reactors running for 40 years, admittedly an ambitious undertaking.


In all four heavy-metal reactor schemes we evaluated, the plutonium content in the spent fuel becomes rich in the plutonium isotopes 238Pu and 240Pu and lean in 239Pu, the plutonium isotope most useful in making bombs. As mentioned above, even-numbered isotopes of plutonium don't fission very well and produce more internal heat when decaying to uranium, making it more difficult to extract fissionable material for weapons. The higher the weight percentage of 238Pu and 240Pu in spent reactor fuel, the more undesirable it is as a source for weapons material.


We found other reasons to give these concepts good marks for safety and security in our evaluation. For starters, when a fertile isotope is used in the core of one of these reactors, it does not breed plutonium. When plutonium isotopes are produced from other transuranics during operation, they are even-numbered isotopes unsuitable for weapons production. Also, longer operating cycles (making reactor fuel in situ) and on-site fuel reprocessing and fabrication significantly minimize fuel movements and access to the core, eliminating some scenarios under which radioactive material could be stolen.


The safest reactors are those that shut down by themselves. In a heavy metal reactor incorporating thorium (with a bit of uranium to denature the 233U produced) in the fuel as the fertile material, operation is stable and transuranics are destroyed at a high rate relative to power generation. Thanks to the fuel mixture and shape, as well as to a passive-decay heat-removal design, all transients result in inherent shutdown without exceeding safe fuel and structural temperature limits. This is an extra degree of defense the current fleet of reactors can't claim.


H, Too? Oh!


It's important to note that a heavy metal reactor is one of six concepts being studied as the U.S. Department of Energy considers the next generation of nuclear technologies. The DOE's Generation IV Reactor Program aims to develop and demonstrate by 2015 a reactor that has a high degree of sustainability, safety, reliability, economy and proliferation resistance. It focuses on energy systems that accomplish electricity production, waste management, hydrogen production and fissile material creation.


Could a heavy-metal reactor produce hydrogen for automobile fuel? The prospect is intriguing. Since elemental hydrogen does not exist in nature, hydrogen itself is not a fundamental energy source. Nuclear power emerges as a high-density energy source that can be utilized to produce vast amounts of hydrogen. The hydrogen-production mission is best accomplished by designs that can achieve high reactor outlet temperatures (700 to 900 degrees Celsius, depending on the process). Such a plant can either drive high-temperature electrolysis or utilize process heat directly. Heavy metal-cooled fast reactors are ideally suited to meet this mission since they operate at high temperatures but at very low pressure. LBE's boiling point is 1,670 degrees, almost twice that of the most commonly used current metal coolant, sodium, at 883 degrees. As noted above, the temperature of the pressurized water exiting a conventional nuclear-power plant is about 300 degrees.


Do heavy metal reactors have a future? As this article is being edited for publication, athletes are competing in the Olympic Games, and in many events the winner is far from certain. The six contestants (chosen by DOE from more than 100 entries) in the Generation IV program are in the early stages of their preparation for a final showdown. Test reactors will likely have to be small; the U.S. has lost the capability to produce a sufficiently fast neutron flux for large-volume fuel and materials testing. [reference to the decommissioning of FFTF] Fortunately our concept can be tested utilizing existing off-the-shelf reactor technologies in a test design of about 30 megawatts of thermal power. It is worth noting here that the high heat-transfer capability of a heavy-metal reactor enables compact cores with high power density (smaller and more economical cores) compared with our current fleet of light-water reactors, so that small reactors might end up being the norm rather than the exception if this technology is adopted.


We can take some lessons from the Russian experience, and it's possible that even as heavy-metal-reactor research continues in the U.S., the BREST project will serve as a full-scale commercial demonstration of the technology. The Alpha-class nuclear submarines were the fastest and deepest-diving subs in the Soviet fleet. That experience showed that material corrosion and oxygen control in the liquid lead were important issues in this kind of reactor. Pilot testing can attempt solutions to such known problems.


I'll conclude by offering this thought: We may need to accomplish nuclear reactor design differently in the future by engaging the entire technical community. First-of-a-kind systems should be built for and by the testing community (our nation's universities and the national laboratories) working together. All we need is to round up our heavy-metal nuclear physicists and have a little fast-neutron jam session.


Bibliography


[Note; These references include a special issue of Nuclear Technology, September 2004, whose contents form the technical basis for this article.]


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Dostal, V., P. Hejzlar, N. E. Todreas and J. Buongiorno. 2004. Medium-power lead-alloy fast reactor balance-of-plant options. Nuclear Technology 147:388-405.


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Hejzlar, P., J. Buongiomo, P. E. MacDonald and N. E. Todreas. 2004. Design strategy and constraints for medium-power lead-alloy-cooled actinide burners. Nuclear Technology 147:321-343.


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Hong, S. G., E. Greenspan and Y. I. Kim. 2002. Once-for-life core for the encapsulated nuclear heat source (ENHS) reactor. Proceedings of the International Conference on the New Frontiers of Nuclear Technology: Reactor Physics, Safety and High-Performance Computing (PHYSOR-2002).


Hong, S. G., E. Greenspan and Y.I. Kim. 2003. Alternative design options for the ENHS (encapsulated nuclear heat source) reactor. Proceedings of the 2003 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants.


Loewen, E. P., R. G. Ballinger and J. Lim, 2004. Corrosion studies in support of mediumpower lead-alloy-cooled reactor. Nuclear Technology 147:436-456.


Orlov, V. V, A. G. Sila-Novitsky, V. S. Smirnov,V. S. Tsikunov, A. I. Filin, V. N. Dobrovol'sky Yu. I. Kazennov and B. D. Rogoskin 1994. Leadcooled reactor core, its characteristics and features. Proceedings of the International Topical Meeting on Advanced Reactor Safety (ARS '94).


Romano, A., P. Hejzlar and N. E. Todreas. 2004. Fertile-free fast lead-cooled incinerators for efficient actinide burning. Nuclear Technology 147:368-387.


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Spencer, B. W., R. N. Hill, D. C. Wade, D. J. Hill, J. J. Sienicki, H. S. Khalil, J. E. Calahan, M. T. Farmer, V. A. Maroni and L. Leibowitz. 2000. An advanced modular HLMC reactor concept featuring economy, safety, and proliferation resistance. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE8).


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Copyright Sigma XI-The Scientific Research Society Nov/Dec 2004 | Eric P. Loewen received his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering in 1999 from the University of Wisconsin. He is the manager of the molten lead cooled reactor project at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, undertaken in collaboration with the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In January he heads for Washington, D.C., to begin a year learning firsthand about the policy process as the American Nuclear Society's 2005 Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. Address: Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-3860. Internet: loewep@inel.gov.


 



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Phil

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Yes, in principle, this would work very fine! But in practice, I have still serious doubts.

1) Safe and economical partitioning of minor actinides has not been demonstrated on large scales.

2) The use of lead-bismuth as a coolant has two unsoved problems: material corrosion issues and access difficulties for inspection.

3) I still exige detailing explications to the claim "Thanks to the fuel mixture and shape, as well as to a passive-decay heat-removal design, all transients result in inherent shutdown without exceeding safe fuel and structural temperature limits. This is an extra degree of defense the current fleet of reactors can't claim.". On the contrary, from the work of experts in Japan (T. Mukayama) and France (M. Salvatores), it is shown that the effective result of mixing minor actinides in the fuel of a fast reactor is the deterioration of the inherent safety parameters, i.e.
-Effective fraction of delayed neutrons
-Void coefficient
moreover, in a standard water-cooled reactor, we have aslo a much more favourable Doppler coefficient. Therefore, in a metal-cooled reactor, from safety considerations the maximum allowable fraction of minor actinides in the fuel is about 5%. Hey, else why would we even talk about ADS?

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10kBq jaro

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Hey, else why would we even talk about ADS?


Because the accelerator folks need fresh funding.


Or, as someone else said not long ago, when you've worked all your life with accelerators, you begin to think they can solve any number of problems (how does that saying go -- when you've got a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail....


 



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Philipum

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I admit I have an accelerator background... you revealed my hammer !

But I suspect your hammer is nuclear fission . It would be a pity to think that only one technology will solve all energy questions. For this nail, I believe what we need is a mixture of all possible hammers: nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermic, etc.

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Philipum

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To close the debate about how dangerous are the transuranics in nuclear spent fuel:

No matter how difficult is seems to be to get rif of transuranic elements, it seems that if taken car of in a good way, they won't harm anybody. Since they are alpha emitters, the only way they can harm people is that people eat (or drink) them. Because Uranium dioxide has a very very low solubility in water (it looks like ceramics), an uranium dioxide spent fuel can be burried safely in a geologically stable ground: if no future civilisations get there and open the canister, the transuranics will not move, they have no way of getting out of the site under the first few hundred thousands of years. Difficult analysis studies with the scandinavian design (coppar canisters surrounded by clay 500m deep in granite rock) show that the main contributors to the dose to the environment may be 226Ra and 129I, and the total dose to humans, if nothing catastrofic happens, would be far lower than 1% of the natural activity.

So you were right: transuranics should not be a problem. As long as they are handled the right way .

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10kBq jaro

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The current issue of the periodical Physics in Canada includes an article ("The Evolutionary CANDU Reactor - Past, Present, and Future") which states that "robust technical solutions exist for both long-term storage and permanent, passive disposal of waste fuel."

On page 353 the article explains that,

" The concepts for permanent geologic disposal of waste have analogues in nature.
For example, the Cigar Lake uranium ore deposit in Saskatchewan contains about the same amount of uranium as the spent fuel that will arise from almost 100 years of operating all the CANDU reactors in Canada.
The Cigar Lake deposit has existed for about 1.3 billion years under conditions that are far less resistive to the release of radioactivity than an engineered repository.
Just 5 meters away from the deposit, one of the richest in the world, the water easily meets drinking water standards for radioactivity content. "



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Philipum

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But in nature we donnot have examples of relatively large concentrations of long-lived fission products! The nasty ones are 129I and 135Cs, which are very mobile. That is the reason why the canisters must be surrounded by clay, and why the geochmistry and hydrology of the site under long periods of time must be very well studied.

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GoogleNaut

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I wonder if such radionucleides could be processed out (as a part of normal spent fuel reprocessing to recover fertile transuranic isotopes) and then placed in target canisters. Processing 'target' canisters through an operating reactor core should saturate them with neutrons. I suspect that this may actually reduce their long term activity level by transmutation (I'd have to see their capture cross sections.) Irradiated 'target' canisters undergo a further reprocessing step to again seperate out the longer lived radionucleides. Transmuting longer lived fission products into shorter lived species increases their activity level in the near term but the radioactivity should decay off much faster. Perhaps only requiring decades or century term storage, versus perhaps geologic timescale storage. Reducing the required storage time by aggressive reprocessing followed by active transmutation--perhaps by irradiating it in a an operating reactor core--should reduce the demands on waste storage. Any plutonium that may be seperated in reprocessing could be accounted for, and remixed into subsequent fresh fuel loadings. Thus one 'liability' of reprocessing could in fact become a 'feature' by disposing of materials which could otherwise be misused for weapons applications.

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10kBq jaro

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" But in nature we donnot have examples of relatively large concentrations of long-lived fission products! The nasty ones are 129I and 135Cs, which are very mobile. "


I don't think this is important. Both 129I and 135Cs are neutron-poor radioisotopes, and as such are produced at very low rates, compared to their heavy cousins, Cs-137 and I-131 & 133.


Polonium-210 is also "very mobile." Its not a fission product, and its not long-lived, but its constantly produced by the uranium decay chain -- which goes on for as long as there's uranium in the ground (i.e. it hasn't been mined & fissioned in reactors).


Nevertheless, as the article says, the drinking water standards are met just a short distance away from the concentrated uranium ore body.



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