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> particularly as fuel cost is such as small part of the total? The current nuclear industry says things like: "Fuel is free!" all the time, and it nearly is.

> particularly as fuel cost is such as small part of the total? The current nuclear industry says things like: "Fuel is free!" all the time, and it nearly is. At EDF's fleet, fuel is something like 5% of the total cost. But this is in a world where capital costs have soared. If we're not careful, we can easily make fuel not free. Many advanced reactor companies are running too far with the fuel-is-free mentality and making choices that will inevitably challenge their long-term goals from a fuel cost point of view. Burning HALEU is a perfect example of this, as if you do that, especially in a fast reactor where you need high fissile concentration, you can make fuel more than 50% of total costs. If nuclear scales 10x or more as we need it to for climate change mitigation, the fuel-is-free mantra will break down. > Isn't this what Nuscale is basically proposing Pretty much. They're onto something for sure, as far as light-water reactors go. It will be interesting to see how much safety-grade equipment they end up with as the licensing continues. > Interesting, got a reference? I couldn't find anything via some quick searching. Page 413 of Hewlett and Holl's Atoms for Peace and War: https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl-atoms-peace-and-war https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl...

jabl 7y ago
> Burning HALEU is a perfect example of this, as if you do that, especially in a fast reactor where you need high fissile concentration, you can make fuel more than 50% of total costs. The way I think breeder might make sense today for a new commercial design (without a government funded reprocessing program) is if you have a design with a breeding ratio slightly over 1 enabling very high burnups without reactivity swing (iso-breeding, breed-and-burn, or whatever you want to call it). Of course, that requires a fuel design that won't fall apart at high burnups. IIRC EBR-II metallic fuel reached up to 200 GWd/tHM, and of course fast spectrum molten salt designs like Elysium have no such limits at all. But yeah, for thermal reactors with no plans for reprocessing, much higher enrichments than the current LWR standard is most likely not justified, in my non-expert opinion. > Page 413 of Hewlett and Holl's Atoms for Peace and War: https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl.. https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl.... Thanks, looks like an interesting book (though not really much details why Zinn thought the way he did..).

jabl 7y ago

> Burning HALEU is a perfect example of this, as if you do that, especially in a fast reactor where you need high fissile concentration, you can make fuel more than 50% of total costs. The way I think breeder might make sense today for a new commercial design (without a government funded reprocessing program) is if you have a design with a breeding ratio slightly over 1 enabling very high burnups without reactivity swing (iso-breeding, breed-and-burn, or whatever you want to call it). Of course, that requires a fuel design that won't fall apart at high burnups. IIRC EBR-II metallic fuel reached up to 200 GWd/tHM, and of course fast spectrum molten salt designs like Elysium have no such limits at all. But yeah, for thermal reactors with no plans for reprocessing, much higher enrichments than the current LWR standard is most likely not justified, in my non-expert opinion. > Page 413 of Hewlett and Holl's Atoms for Peace and War: https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl.. https://www.energy.gov/management/downloads/hewlett-and-holl.... Thanks, looks like an interesting book (though not really much details why Zinn thought the way he did..).