A roadmap for the development ATW technology: Systems scenarios and integration
- and others
As requested by the US Congress, a roadmap has been established for development of ATW Technology. The roadmap defines a reference system along with preferred technologies which require further development to reduce technical risk, associated deployment scenarios, and a detailed plan of necessary R and D to support implementation of this technology. Also, the potential for international collaboration is discussed which has the potential to reduce the cost of the program. In addition, institutional issues are described that must be addressed in order to successfully pursue this technology, and the benefits resulting from full implementation are discussed. This report uses as its reference a fast spectrum liquid metal cooled system. Although Lead-Bismuth Eutectic is the preferred option, sodium coolant is chosen as the reference (backup) technology because it represents the lowest technical risk and an excellent basis for estimating the life cycle cost of the systems exists in the work carried out under DOE's ALMR (PRISM) program. Metal fuel and associated pyrochemical treatment is assumed. Similarly a linear accelerator has been adopted as the reference. A reference ATW plant was established to ensure consistent discussion of technical and life cycle cost issues. Over 60 years of operation, the reference ATW plant would process about 10,000 tn of spent nuclear reactor fuel. This is in comparison to the current inventory of about 40,000 tn of spent fuel and the projected inventory of about 86,000 tn of spent fuel if all currently licensed nuclear power plants run until their license expire. The reference ATW plant was used together with an assumed scenario of no new nuclear plant orders in the US to generate the deployment scenario for ATW. In the R and D roadmap, key technical issues are identified and timescales proposed for the resolution of these issues. For the accelerator the main issue is the achievement of the necessary reliability in operation. To avoid frequent thermal transients and maintain grid stability the accelerator must reach levels of performance never previously required. For the target material the main technical choice is between solid or liquid targets. This issue is interlocked with the choice of coolant. Lead-Bismuth eutectic is potentially a superior choice for both these missions but represents a path with greater technical risk. For the blanket metal fuel has been selected. The reference method of processing of spent fuel from LWRs to provide the input material for ATW is chosen to be aqueous because of the large quantity of uranium that needs to be brought to a state that it can be treated as Class C waste. Again this is the path of least technical risk although the pyrometallurgical option will be pursued as an alternative. Processing of the fuel after irradiation in ATW will be undertaken using pyrometallurgical methods. The transmutation of Tc and I represents a special research issue and various options will be pursued to achieve these goals. Finally the system as a whole will need optimization from a reactivity and power control perspective. Varying accelerator power is feasible but can lead to overdesign of the accelerator; other options are movable control rods, burnable poison rods, and adaptations of the fuel management strategy.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 750787
- Report Number(s):
- ANL--99/16
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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