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scientific work, not on non-essentials. In essence, the Laboratory tried, and in large measure successfully, to bend to such demands but not to break. When the IFR program began to gain momentum in the mid-1980s, much of the excitement of the early days slowly returned. The laboratory once again directed its own program, and it was working on directions that were new and soundly based. They were Argonne directions. Important discoveries once again were being made across the board, in fuels, in spent fuel processing and recycling, in safety, in all the necessary fields, and it was exciting to the staff. Let no one say the pace of development isn‘t important. Within the very constrained budget of that IFR period, a fraction of the national breeder development budget a decade before, we moved along as fast as we possibly could. Rapid pace is vital to excitement about, and to success in, development. With new discoveries and new knowledge coming almost month by month, the IFR people could see for themselves that once again they were a part of something big. They were making history. 77
CHAPTER 4 IN THE BACKGROUND “Energy security does not stand by itself but is lodged in the larger relations among nations and how they interact with one another... The renewed focus on energy security is driven in part by an exceedingly tight oil market and by high oil prices, which have doubled over the past three years. But it is also fueled by the threat of terrorism, instability in some exporting nations, a nationalist backlash, fears of a scramble for supplies, geopolitical rivalries, and countries' fundamental need for energy to power their economic growth. In the background—but not too far back—is renewed anxiety over whether there will be sufficient resources to meet the world's energy requirements in the decades ahead.” Daniel Yergin [1] 4.1 Introduction In the face of gathering evidence that the world is facing increasing constraints on fossil energy supplies and of repeated calls for international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, today‘s apparent complacency about energy supply is not easy to understand. It is accepted, possibly even in the most rigidly anti-nuclear circles, that fast reactor fuel is unlimited and carbon-free. Only a few decades ago our nation planned ahead for assured energy supplies. From the 1960s onward to 1977, when the Carter administration derailed it, the fast reactor was given the highest priority among non-fossil sources of energy because of the ever-lasting nature of its fuel. In the thirty-plus years since, under the huge demands of the modern day fossil fuel supplies have depleted further. Nuclear energy and the eventual need for the fast reactor have been all but ignored in energy planning in the U.S. At best, nuclear energy is viewed as a useful but relatively minor contributor to the national energy supply, comparable in importance as well as in size to hydro. As a consequence, from the late seventies onward there has been no viable plan to assure adequate energy supplies for the nation in the future. Fifty years ago, in the early days of nuclear power, fossil fuels, domestic, abundant and cheap, provided all the energy of every kind the nation could need. And to the present day, though now with the help of huge imports, they have continued to do so. The view that this will continue much as it does today seems to 78
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PLENTIFUL ENERGY The Story of the I
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Copyright © 2011 Charles E. Till a
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CONTENTS FOREWORD .................
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CHAPTER 10 APPLICATION OF PYROPROCE
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FOREWORD On a breezy December day i
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CHAPTER 1 ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATO
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even now is straining the limits of
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with events and time. Till saw the
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it, I saw how a national laboratory
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Figure 1-2. West stands of the Stag
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development of nuclear power for ci
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depended on U.S. ability to maintai
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construction funding kept increasin
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faced a nightmarish combination of
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concept in the next decade.) In sti
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was based on EBR-I experience, but
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Figure 1-9. Experimental Breeder Re
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Figure 1-11. Rendering of the EBR-I
Page 38 and 39: performance. But the decision had b
Page 40 and 41: its shakedown in early years it jus
Page 42 and 43: sense primarily a commercial power
Page 44 and 45: without electrical generation, the
Page 46 and 47: Its purpose was to demonstrate the
Page 48 and 49: of each period, which the managemen
Page 50 and 51: CHAPTER 2 THE INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR
Page 52 and 53: A line had been pursued that the re
Page 54 and 55: The IFR refining process also produ
Page 56 and 57: director of Argonne a year or two b
Page 58 and 59: eporting on nuclear power developme
Page 60 and 61: A few weeks later, the mid-term ele
Page 62 and 63: 2.6 Summary In late 1983, the line
Page 64 and 65: Argonne would be. My Ph.D. at Imper
Page 66 and 67: I had worked at the United Kingdom
Page 68 and 69: hadn‘t bothered us with it. But t
Page 70 and 71: But I had gone over and over the on
Page 72 and 73: laboratories.‖ Incidentally, late
Page 74 and 75: Argonne by this time was one of sev
Page 76 and 77: 3.1.2 Life at the Laboratory in the
Page 78 and 79: An anecdote: In the cooperative arr
Page 80 and 81: Cycle Facility‖ went. We pushed i
Page 82 and 83: (LMFBR), which assumed a very rapid
Page 84 and 85: the pool was a settled issue; it wa
Page 86 and 87: During the early stage of the IFR p
Page 90 and 91: e generally held, even as facts inc
Page 92 and 93: cf per day from Canada via pipeline
Page 94 and 95: serious, and it is made more seriou
Page 96 and 97: global economy. The LWR, and the Ad
Page 98 and 99: supply 11%, and one, the world‘s
Page 100 and 101: Fatih Birol, has recently been quot
Page 102 and 103: gas production of little use in the
Page 104 and 105: expenditures during a decade starti
Page 106 and 107: thousand tonnes in one large increm
Page 108 and 109: But the principal line of developme
Page 110 and 111: Tar sands and oil shale recovery ar
Page 112 and 113: 14. W. H. Ziegler, C. J. Campbell,
Page 114 and 115: Argonne had been a part of the deve
Page 116 and 117: Breaches or holes in the fuel cladd
Page 118 and 119: waste. For efficiency in uranium us
Page 120 and 121: Further, as a metal, sodium does no
Page 122 and 123: to the boundaries and many leak fro
Page 124 and 125: is debatable, it remains our belief
Page 126 and 127: CHAPTER 6 IFR FUEL CHARACTERISTICS,
Page 128 and 129: To do this, an extraordinarily simp
Page 130 and 131: Further cementing the decision was
Page 132 and 133: the AEC, but the reactor operation
Page 134 and 135: hands-on access needed to accomplis
Page 136 and 137: temperature. However, a very substa
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It turned out that the high-plutoni
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In the column ―Pu content % heavy
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40 start-ups and shutdowns 5 15% ov
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During casting, a partial vacuum (1
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is in fact a new fuel. Plutonium-ba
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8. G. L. Hofman and L. C. Walters,
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characteristics necessary for this.
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exchangers, and the steam generator
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experiments, as mentioned; this has
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sufficient to allow radioactive rel
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In the IFR, this loss of the coolin
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Figure7- 2. Reactor outlet temperat
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for thermal expansion of heavy stru
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power to shut down power is basical
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criticality. The debris is in the f
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7.10.2 The EBR-I Partial Meltdown T
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7.11 Licensing Implications What ar
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The sodium flowing into the steam g
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[15] Provisions are also made to co
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disassembly comes, it is with a rea
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CHAPTER 8 THE PYROPROCESS In the ne
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EBR-II purposes, and it established
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valuable fuel constituents, uranium
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and materials and it had been renam
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The first operation is done in the
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into the receiver crucible. The hea
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In the final step, the pins are arr
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Spent Fuel Processed, kg effective
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products, highly radioactive and se
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its own bayonet-style partial inter
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If the bond sodium along with the s
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CHAPTER 9 THE BASIS OF THE ELECTROR
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Whether or not a given reaction can
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9.3 Kinetics of the Reactions Chemi
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The exponential exp((E f -E b )/RT)
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The electrorefining process brings
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cathode operation. Once the solutio
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Table 9-2. Measured data and calcul
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All four measurements show that eve
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The free energy of the reaction of
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2. At an actinide chloride ratio of
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CHAPTER 10 APPLICATION OF PYROPROCE
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10.2 Electrolytic Reduction Step 10
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The pyrochemical process simply sup
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Figure 10-1. Electrolytic reduction
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The distribution of fuel constituen
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an electrorefiner with a 5001,000 k
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aqueous reprocessing plant. The eco
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Li metal at the cathode. Lithium me
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4. D. W. Dees and J. P. Ackerman,
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Our intent for the IFR technology w
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dose to any member of the public mu
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IFR process, as we shall see, does
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Relative Radiological Toxicity uran
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doses from Tc-99 and I-129 equilibr
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Fraction of Initial Actinide, % pro
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long-lived fission products and tra
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to decay to the point where they co
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References 1. ―Nuclear Waste Poli
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12.1 Introduction Assessment of a p
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History provides empirical evidence
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program offered nations help with n
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Other nations are recycling their s
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uranium-233 cycle has been half-hea
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electrorefiner salt. And this, of c
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those concentrations in making the
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chance of ―pre-ignition‖ leadin
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It is now known that the plutonium
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12.8 Monitoring of Processes Always
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[18] In it he shows that with a spo
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Such a system tracks the quantity a
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weapons grade plutonium. Levels of
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12.13 Summary In IFR technology the
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12. T. P. McLaughlin, et al., ―A
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The earliest fast reactors designed
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India, too, has successfully operat
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levels, actually higher than the di
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for the backend of the fuel cycle,
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$/lb Uranium Price, $/lb U3O8 the f
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the once-through fuel cycle. Howeve
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$/kg 1200 1000 $1000/kg Rep Cost Pu
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Table 13-7. Summary Comparison of F
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fabrication. This, along with a low
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Fissile Cost, $/gm-fissile Fuel Cyc
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13.6 System Aspects The previous se
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waste streams have no long-term dec
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5. S. C. Chetal, ―India‘s Fast
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capacity over this century, in a sy
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thermal properties of NaK—the boi
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It is suspected that the lead corro
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Neutron Yield, Eta Value A = number
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to maintain a hard spectrum, the fu
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Table 14-3. Effects of fuel pin dia
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Fuel Volume Fraction have a large e
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neutron leakages from the core are
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like breeding, does increase such d
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substantial advantage to start with
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Doubling Time, yrs the reactivity c
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14.7 Worldwide Fast Reactor Experie
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limit to its life. The ingenuity of
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Nuclear Capacity, GWe the replaceme
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14.9 How to Deploy Pyroprocessing P
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construction projects. They may see
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inferior to sodium in their thermal
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5. Federation of American Scientist
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Supporting the reactor design and c
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In beginning this
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APPENDIX A DETAILED EXPLANATION OF
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The actinide metals (uranium, pluto
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As noted above, the interactions ri
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3. Equilibrium coefficients give th
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ion is created at the anode. Bulk t
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proceed spontaneously. If the magni
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product chlorides are highly stable
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increases with increasing temperatu
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Equilibrium in a chemical system is
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Exp(-ΔG o /RT) = [ U / Pu ] [ U /
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―in solution.‖ More Pu added to
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appropriate values are used for the
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A.9.5 The Second Cathode Regime: On
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in the real world. Uranium dendrite
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This is the significant number. The
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For those who are curious, the elec
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of concentration of uranium chlorid
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agreement with the measured ratio w
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eference 7. The important calculati
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as well. The numbers were obtained
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Run3: Plutonium isn’t, Uranium is
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The final actinide chloride ratios
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values of several of the constants
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HCDA HFEF HM HWR HTR IAEA ICRP IEA
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. CHARLES E. TI
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