5 ms·

Are there any existing reactor types, blueprints or built, that are engineered toward utilizing spent fuel first and foremost? If not, I hope France seriously

Are there any existing reactor types, blueprints or built, that are engineered toward utilizing spent fuel first and foremost? If not, I hope France seriously considers using breeder reactors to reduce leftover radioactive material. Otherwise, I think this is fantastic news. In fact even if they build light water reactors I think it is the ideal base load solution to bridge the gap from oil and coal.

PaulHoule 5y ago
This may be the one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ApH-0YHkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ApH-0YHkA After Superphenix I don't think they are in any hurry to develop the LMFBR.
- jabl 5y ago
  There was ASTRID, another sodium cooled fast reactor design, that was cancelled a couple of years ago before it got off the drawing board. (Answering again as the previous answer was attached to the wrong parent when the articles were merged)
  - natmaka 5y ago
    These 'fast breeder reactors' are difficult to tame. In France: ASTRID burnt ~700 millions euros and didn't get past plans. Before it the 'Superphenix' project burnt ~8 billions euros, was built, had a long chain of incidents, then was canceled. Before it the 'Phenix' project ran then had serious problems ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix#Earlier_work_and_Ph%C3%A9nix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix#Earlier_work_... ). Before it the 'Rapsodie' project also ended with problems. Notwithstanding numerous projects in other nations. Nowadays Russia (and India, to an extent) is the only nation pursuing this path.
    - PaulHoule 5y ago
      In the US the EBR I melted down as did the Enrico Fermi reactor in Detroit. Both of them were put back together and operated after the fuel damage. EBR II and FFTF operated with no major problems in the US, but the Clinch River project was canceled. However the US has failed to construct a mixed-oxide fuel facility which is the most developed fuel for a fast reactor (e.g. pure metal and nitrides are both options but oxide fuels seem to require a high energy ball mill that can turn harmless silica into deadly nanoparticles that can wreck your lungs, just imagine what it does with Pu) MONJU burned up in Japan. The Russians have documented hundreds of sodium fires in the BN-350 and BN-400 but they would say fires happen in industrial facilities all the time and people just put them out. They turned on the BN-800 in 2016 and it is now consuming nuclear weapons plutonium. Old literature suggests that the capital cost of the LMFBR is inevitably worse than the LWR. I'm not sure that's right. Both the LWR and coal burning power plants have been uncompetitive since 1980 against gas turbines for power generation. A closed-cycle gas turbine would fit in the employee break room of the turbine house of a nuclear reactor, but it is an undeveloped technology. A high temperature reactor with a gas turbine powerset could potentially be an order of magnitude smaller than an LWR, not have high pressures, have no risk of a steam explosion -- I think next generation nuclear is not worth pursuing unless the capital cost can be brought radically down with those factors. There is a precedent for commercial licensing of the LMFBR in the US. Terrestrial Energy (Bill Gates's company) is making noises about building one but they are holding their cards so close to their chest that it's hard to believe they have a realistic plan to do it.
      - jabl 5y ago
        > However the US has failed to construct a mixed-oxide fuel facility which is the most developed fuel for a fast reactor (e.g. pure metal and nitrides are both options but oxide fuels seem to require a high energy ball mill that can turn harmless silica into deadly nanoparticles that can wreck your lungs, just imagine what it does with Pu) Oxide fuel technology is of course pretty mature, as that's what current generation LWR's all use. However, it has severe disadvantages in a LMFBR. US thinking was apparently that they would jump straight to metal fuel (EBR-II and the canceled IFR), other who have used it see it as a stopgap until nitride fuels become available (e.g. Russia is experimenting with nitrides in their fast reactors). As for economics, technically breeding is extremely cool (catnip for physicists!), but with current uranium prices there's no particular economic driver to develop and commercialize the technology. I think it's very hard to compare prices for mature LWR technology and various one-off fast breeder prototypes, let alone paper reactors. It's useful as a backstop for rising uranium prices, however. > There is a precedent for commercial licensing of the LMFBR in the US. Terrestrial Energy (Bill Gates's company) is making noises about building one but they are holding their cards so close to their chest that it's hard to believe they have a realistic plan to do it. The Bill Gates backed company is Terrapower. They have some agreement with GE Hitachi to develop and commercialize the technology, called "Natrium". AFAIU the Natrium reactor is heavily inspired by the canceled IFR, using metal fuel. We'll see what happens, interesting tech though. (Terrestrial Energy is the company behind the "IMSR" molten salt reactor. It's a thermal spectrum uranium burning, non-breeding reactor design, though)
CircleSpokes 5y ago
Aren't reactors like that typically a proliferation risk? That might not be an issue as long as France doesn't decide to start selling its nuclear power plants to questionable countries again.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  Both recycling fuel and breeder reactors have side effects that could be used for proliferation. France is one of the few countries that do recycle spent fuel. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t... France is a nuclear capable country, so the proliferation risk is fairly low from what I understand. They could even sell the plants abroad and bring the waste back to France to be recycled. Germany is not a nuclear capable country, and I am not sure how they feel about France being their primary source of energy (or enriched uranium, if they have their own plants). Hopefully they prefer French nuclear energy to Russian oil and gas.
  - webreac 5y ago
    France recycle spent fuel for whole Europe. In order to reuse a part of plutonium, most of the plant consume a mix of uranium and plutonium: mox. AFAIK, France has huge piles of useless plutonium.
  - kazen44 5y ago
    > Germany is not a nuclear capable country, and I am not sure how they feel about France being their primary source of energy (or enriched uranium, if they have their own plants). Hopefully they prefer French nuclear energy to Russian oil and gas. Considering europe has a harmonized energy market[0][1], does that really matter? France, germany and the benelux are so tightly economically integrated anyways, that doing harm to one would result in massive chaos in the others. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Network_of_Transmission_System_Operators_for_Electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Network_of_Transmissi... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Market_in_Electricity_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Market_in_Electricity...
- 5y ago
ChuckMcM 5y ago
Yes, look at traveling wave reactors.

PaulHoule 5y ago

This may be the one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ApH-0YHkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ApH-0YHkA After Superphenix I don't think they are in any hurry to develop the LMFBR.

jabl 5y ago
There was ASTRID, another sodium cooled fast reactor design, that was cancelled a couple of years ago before it got off the drawing board. (Answering again as the previous answer was attached to the wrong parent when the articles were merged)
- natmaka 5y ago
  These 'fast breeder reactors' are difficult to tame. In France: ASTRID burnt ~700 millions euros and didn't get past plans. Before it the 'Superphenix' project burnt ~8 billions euros, was built, had a long chain of incidents, then was canceled. Before it the 'Phenix' project ran then had serious problems ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix#Earlier_work_and_Ph%C3%A9nix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix#Earlier_work_... ). Before it the 'Rapsodie' project also ended with problems. Notwithstanding numerous projects in other nations. Nowadays Russia (and India, to an extent) is the only nation pursuing this path.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    In the US the EBR I melted down as did the Enrico Fermi reactor in Detroit. Both of them were put back together and operated after the fuel damage. EBR II and FFTF operated with no major problems in the US, but the Clinch River project was canceled. However the US has failed to construct a mixed-oxide fuel facility which is the most developed fuel for a fast reactor (e.g. pure metal and nitrides are both options but oxide fuels seem to require a high energy ball mill that can turn harmless silica into deadly nanoparticles that can wreck your lungs, just imagine what it does with Pu) MONJU burned up in Japan. The Russians have documented hundreds of sodium fires in the BN-350 and BN-400 but they would say fires happen in industrial facilities all the time and people just put them out. They turned on the BN-800 in 2016 and it is now consuming nuclear weapons plutonium. Old literature suggests that the capital cost of the LMFBR is inevitably worse than the LWR. I'm not sure that's right. Both the LWR and coal burning power plants have been uncompetitive since 1980 against gas turbines for power generation. A closed-cycle gas turbine would fit in the employee break room of the turbine house of a nuclear reactor, but it is an undeveloped technology. A high temperature reactor with a gas turbine powerset could potentially be an order of magnitude smaller than an LWR, not have high pressures, have no risk of a steam explosion -- I think next generation nuclear is not worth pursuing unless the capital cost can be brought radically down with those factors. There is a precedent for commercial licensing of the LMFBR in the US. Terrestrial Energy (Bill Gates's company) is making noises about building one but they are holding their cards so close to their chest that it's hard to believe they have a realistic plan to do it.
    - jabl 5y ago
      > However the US has failed to construct a mixed-oxide fuel facility which is the most developed fuel for a fast reactor (e.g. pure metal and nitrides are both options but oxide fuels seem to require a high energy ball mill that can turn harmless silica into deadly nanoparticles that can wreck your lungs, just imagine what it does with Pu) Oxide fuel technology is of course pretty mature, as that's what current generation LWR's all use. However, it has severe disadvantages in a LMFBR. US thinking was apparently that they would jump straight to metal fuel (EBR-II and the canceled IFR), other who have used it see it as a stopgap until nitride fuels become available (e.g. Russia is experimenting with nitrides in their fast reactors). As for economics, technically breeding is extremely cool (catnip for physicists!), but with current uranium prices there's no particular economic driver to develop and commercialize the technology. I think it's very hard to compare prices for mature LWR technology and various one-off fast breeder prototypes, let alone paper reactors. It's useful as a backstop for rising uranium prices, however. > There is a precedent for commercial licensing of the LMFBR in the US. Terrestrial Energy (Bill Gates's company) is making noises about building one but they are holding their cards so close to their chest that it's hard to believe they have a realistic plan to do it. The Bill Gates backed company is Terrapower. They have some agreement with GE Hitachi to develop and commercialize the technology, called "Natrium". AFAIU the Natrium reactor is heavily inspired by the canceled IFR, using metal fuel. We'll see what happens, interesting tech though. (Terrestrial Energy is the company behind the "IMSR" molten salt reactor. It's a thermal spectrum uranium burning, non-breeding reactor design, though)

CircleSpokes 5y ago

Aren't reactors like that typically a proliferation risk? That might not be an issue as long as France doesn't decide to start selling its nuclear power plants to questionable countries again.

CameronNemo 5y ago
Both recycling fuel and breeder reactors have side effects that could be used for proliferation. France is one of the few countries that do recycle spent fuel. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t... France is a nuclear capable country, so the proliferation risk is fairly low from what I understand. They could even sell the plants abroad and bring the waste back to France to be recycled. Germany is not a nuclear capable country, and I am not sure how they feel about France being their primary source of energy (or enriched uranium, if they have their own plants). Hopefully they prefer French nuclear energy to Russian oil and gas.
- webreac 5y ago
  France recycle spent fuel for whole Europe. In order to reuse a part of plutonium, most of the plant consume a mix of uranium and plutonium: mox. AFAIK, France has huge piles of useless plutonium.
- kazen44 5y ago
  > Germany is not a nuclear capable country, and I am not sure how they feel about France being their primary source of energy (or enriched uranium, if they have their own plants). Hopefully they prefer French nuclear energy to Russian oil and gas. Considering europe has a harmonized energy market[0][1], does that really matter? France, germany and the benelux are so tightly economically integrated anyways, that doing harm to one would result in massive chaos in the others. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Network_of_Transmission_System_Operators_for_Electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Network_of_Transmissi... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Market_in_Electricity_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Market_in_Electricity...
5y ago

ChuckMcM 5y ago

Yes, look at traveling wave reactors.