Abstract
Fuel management deals with the irradiation and processing of fuel. An analysis of the fuel cycle is necessary to estimate fuel costs and to define operational requirements such as initial fuel compositions, how often to refuel, changes in power densities during operation, and reactivity control. The great flexibility of fast spectrum systems allows them to either “breed” desired fuel or “burn” undesired wastes—particularly the minor actinides (MA),1 which constitute the greatest long-term contribution to radiotoxicity and heat load in geologic waste repositories. Fuel costs represent one contribution to the total power costs, as discussed in Chapter 3. Unlike the light water reactor (LWR), fuel costs for a fast soectrum reactor are insensitive to U3O8, price. Hence, this contribution to total power cost is predicted to be lower for a fast breeder reactor than for a thermal reactor as the price of U3O8, rises. Since more fissile material is produced in a breeder reactor configuration than is consumed, the basic (feed) fuel for the fast breeder reactor is depleted uranium, which is available for centuries without further mining of uranium ore.
Section 7.8 Physics of Transmutation contributed by Massimo Salvatores
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Notes
- 1.
“Minor actinides” refers to the actinide elements heavier than uranium typically found in used nuclear fuel, but does not include uranium or plutonium, which are “major actinides”. Minor actinides are typically Np, Am, and Cm.
- 2.
Lanthanide elements such as gadolinium are used as neutron absorbers in the manufactured fuel for reactivity control, and so they are likely present in the used fuel. Separation of these elements from the others is important to assure that neutron absorbers do not affect subsequent usage of the partitioned materials.
- 3.
Transuranic isotopes all have atomic numbers greater than 92 (the atomic number of uranium).
- 4.
One can integrate over the fluence from zero to discharge here (i.e., for Q cycles) for a single batch as long as N m is calculated as if all the region were composed of this batch. This is equivalent to the sum of the fissile material destroyed in each of the Q batches in the region for one cycle.
- 5.
This doubling time is called fuel-cycle-inventory doubling time (IDT) in Ref. [8].
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Tsvetkov, P., Waltar, A., Salvatores, M. (2012). Fuel Management. In: Waltar, A., Todd, D., Tsvetkov, P. (eds) Fast Spectrum Reactors. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9572-8_7
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