Studies of alternative nuclear technologies

Technical Report · Sat Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1978

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/803255· OSTI ID:803255

Turner, S E; Gurley, M K; Kirby, K D; Mitchell, W III; Roach, K E

This report is a summary of tasks performed for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under Contract AC7NC114. The work is directly related to the Agency effort to examine potential alternative fuel cycles that might enhance uranium resource utilization, minimize plutonium production, and reduce the weapons proliferation risk from spent fuel reprocessing or early introduction of fast breeder reactors. Reported herein are summaries of various inter-related task assignments, including: fuel utilization in current light water reactors operating with the uranium fuel cycle; alternate fuel cycles, including the use of denatured fuel in LWRs and of the spectral shift concept for reactivity control; fuel utilization in high temperature graphite moderated reactors using the denatured fuel cycle; fuel utilization in heavy water reactors (CANDU type), including the use of enriched fuel, denatured fuel, and recycle of plutonium and U-233; the tandem fuel cycle (recovery of spent fuel and further irradiation in a CANDU type reactor); issues in the utilization of denatured fuel in LWRs; preliminary conceptual evaluation of a heavy water moderated reactor suitable for use in the United States.

• Research Organization: Southern Science Applications, Inc., Dunedin, FL (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy; U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (US)
• OSTI ID: 803255
• Report Number(s): SSA-106; CNN: AC7NC114
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
ARMS CONTROL
BREEDER REACTORS
DENATURED FUEL
FUEL CYCLE
GRAPHITE MODERATED REACTORS
HEAVY WATER
HEAVY WATER MODERATED REACTORS
SPECTRAL SHIFT
SPENT FUELS