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Effects of actinide compositional variability in the US spent fuel inventory on partitioning-transmutation systems

Conference ·
OSTI ID:10109924
;  [1];  [2]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
  2. California Univ., Berkeley, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Partitioning and transmutation (P-T) is an advanced waste management concept by which certain undesirable nuclides in spent fuel are first isolated (partitioned) and later destroyed (transmuted) in a nuclear reactor or other transmutation device. There are wide variabilities in the nuclide composition of spent fuel. This implies that there will also be wide variabilities in the transmutation device feed. As a waste management system, P-T must be able to accept (all) spent fuel. Variability of nuclide composition (i.e., the feed material for transmutation devices) may be important because virtually all transmutation systems propose to configure transuranic (TRU) nuclides recovered from discharged lightwater reactor (LWR) spent fuel in critical or near-critical cores. To date, all transmutation system core analyses assume invariant nuclide concentrations for startup and recycle cores. Using the US Department of Energy`s (DOE`s) Characteristics Data Base (CDB) and the ORIGEN2 computer code, the current and projected spent fuel discharges until the year 2016 have been categorized according to combinations of fuel burnup, initial enrichment, fuel age (cooling time) and reactor type (boiling-water or pressurized-water reactors). The variability of the infinite multiplication factor (k{sub {infinity}}) is calculated for both fast (ALMR) and thermal (accelerator-based) transmuter systems.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84OR21400
OSTI ID:
10109924
Report Number(s):
CONF-9211114--2; ON: DE93004116
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

052001
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
ACTINIDES
FISSION PRODUCTS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SPENT FUELS
TRANSMUTATION
VARIATIONS
WASTE PROCESSING