Preliminary review of alternative reactor types and fuel cycles. An ad Hoc task force report

Technical Report · Sat Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1977

OSTI ID:6096024

Denise, R P

In the area of reactor concepts, the material has been organized in the following order: near term converter types (those that have had considerable development effort in this or other countries and may be near to commercialization); near term breeder types (those that have had some development effort but still require substantial development programs before commercialization); and far term breeder types (those that require the carrying out of very large developmental programs or the demonstration of basic new technologies). With regard to fuel cycles, it can be stated that there are two basic fuel cycles, the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle and the thorium-uranium fuel cycle. Both cycles would receive their initial fissile charge from /sup 235/U and on a once through basis would make use of that fuel plus the fissile plutonium or the /sup 233/U bred in the fertile fuel during its one cycle of irradiation. Variations of these basic fuel cycles that would provide for recycle of materials in a variety of modes are considered and reviewed including: separated fissile materials; coprocessed materials; spiking of recycle materials; and denaturing of /sup 233/U. Licensing aspects are also discussed.

• Research Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6096024
• Report Number(s): NUREG-0364; NRC-004; ON: TI85902173
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210802* -- Nuclear Power Plants-- Economics-- Fuel Cycle
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
FUEL CYCLE
LEGAL ASPECTS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
PLANNING
POWER PLANTS
REPROCESSING
SAFEGUARDS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
THERMAL POWER PLANTS