A Review of Thorium Utilization as an option for Advanced Fuel Cycle--Potential Option for Brazil in the Future

Conference · Sun Oct 03 00:00:00 EDT 2004

OSTI ID:839368

Maiorino, J R; Carluccio, T

Since the beginning of Nuclear Energy Development, Thorium was considered as a potential fuel, mainly due to the potential to produce fissile uranium 233. Several Th/U fuel cycles, using thermal and fast reactors were proposed, such as the Radkwoski once through fuel cycle for PWR and VVER, the thorium fuel cycles for CANDU Reactors, the utilization in Molten Salt Reactors, the utilization of thorium in thermal (AHWR), and fast reactors (FBTR) in India, and more recently in innovative reactors, mainly Accelerator Driven System, in a double strata fuel cycle. All these concepts besides the increase in natural nuclear resources are justified by non proliferation issues (plutonium constrain) and the waste radiological toxicity reduction. The paper intended to summarize these developments, with an emphasis in the Th/U double strata fuel cycle using ADS. Brazil has one of the biggest natural reserves of thorium, estimated in 1.2 millions of tons of ThO{sub 2}, as will be reviewed in this paper, and therefore R&D programs would be of strategically national interest. In fact, in the past there was some projects to utilize Thorium in Reactors, as the ''Instinto/Toruna'' Project, in cooperation with France, to utilize Thorium in Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor, in the mid of sixties to mid of seventies, and the thorium utilization in PWR, in cooperation with German, from 1979-1988. The paper will review these initiatives in Brazil, and will propose to continue in Brazil activities related with Th/U fuel cycle.

• Research Organization: Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares, P.O. Box 11049, Pinheiros 05422-970-Sao Paulo-SP (BR)
• Sponsoring Organization: none (US)
• OSTI ID: 839368
• Resource Relation: Conference: Americas Nuclear Energy Symposium (ANES 2004), Miami, FL (US), 10/03/2004--10/06/2004; Other Information: PBD: 3 Oct 2004
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS
ACCELERATORS
DOUGLAS POINT ONTARIO REACTOR
FAST REACTORS
FUEL CYCLE
HEAVY WATER
MOLTEN SALT REACTORS
NUCLEAR ENERGY
PLUTONIUM
PROLIFERATION
THORIUM
TOXICITY
URANIUM 233
WASTES
ADVANCED FUEL CYCLE
NONPROLIFERATION
WASTE RADIOLOGICAL REDUCTION
BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCE
P& T
ADS