Abstract
Since the earliest proposals for the accelerator-based breeding of fissile material over thirty years ago, impressive developments in accelerator physics and technology have greatly enhanced the prospects for the technical feasibility of the accelerator breeder. Continuing investigations of the economic outlook for the accelerator breeder reaffirm that it will have an economic role to play in the thermal fission power field when the cost of uranium in constant dollars rises above the current level by a factor of about three. In spite of the low present cost of uranium, the probability of a cost rise of that magnitude is high if potential alternative sources of electrical energy such as the fast breeder reactor, fusion, and photovoltaics prove to be too costly for large-scale adoption. It would appear timely to begin a modest development program directed towards the practical demonstration of key components of the accelerator breeder. The starting point clearly has to be the injector and initial acceleration of the total beam current that is forseen. To this end, a design study for a 300-mA, 10-MeV proton accelerator has been initiated at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Alsmiller, F.S., Alsmiller, R.G., Jr., Gabriel, T.A., Lillie, R.A., and Barish, J. (1981). A phenomenological model for particle production from the collisions of nucleons and pions with fissile elements at medium energies. Report ORNL/TM-7528. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Bartholomew, G.A. and Tunnicliffe, P.R. (Editors) (1966). The AECL Study for an Intense Neutron Generator. Report AECL-2600. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River, Ontario.
Bell, R.E. and Skarsgard, H.M. (1956). Cross sections of (p, xn) reactions in the isotopes of lead and bismuth. Canadian Journal of Physics, 34:745.
Bercovitch, M., Carmìchael, H., Hanna, G.C., and Hincks, E.P. (1960). Yield of neutrons per interaction in U, Pb, W, and Sn by protons of six energies between 250 and 900 MeV selected from cosmic radiation. Physical Review, 119:412.
Burns, T.J., Bartine, D.E., and Renier, J.P. (1979). Concept evaluation of a nuclear design for electro-nuclear fuel production: evaluation of ORNL’s proposed TMF-ENFP. Report ORNL/TM-6828. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Chandler, K.C. and Armstrong, T.W. (1972). Operating instructions for the high energy nucleon meson transport code HETC. Report ORNL-4744. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Church, T.G. (Editor) (1967) ING Status Report July 1967. Report AECL-2750. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River, Ontario.
Coleman, W.A. and Armstrong, T.W. (1970). The nucleon-meson transport code NMTC. Report ORNL-4606. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Crandall, K.R., Stokes, R.H., and Wangler, T.P. (1979). RF quadrupole beam dynamics design studies. In Proceedings of the 1979 Linear Accelerator Conference. BNL-51134. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, p. 205.
Critoph, E., Bannerjee, S., Barclay, F.W., Hamel, D., Milgram, M.S., and Veeder, J.I. (1976). Prospects of self-sufficient equilibrium thorium cycles in CANDU reactors. Report AECL-5501. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River, Ontario.
Dreyfuss, D.J., Augenstein, B.W., Mooz, W.E., and Sher, P.A. (1978). An examination of alternative nuclear breeding methods. Report R-2267-DOE. US Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.
Fraser, J.S., Garvey, P.M., Milton, J.C.D., Kiely, F.M., Thorson, I.M., and Pate, B.D. (1980). Neutron production in thick targets of lead, thorium and uranium bombarded by 480 MeV protons. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Neutron Cross-Sections from 10 to 50 MeV. BNL-NCS-51245. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, p. 155.
Furukawa, K., Nakahara, Y., and Tsukada, K. (1981). Single-fluid-type accelerator molten-salt breeder concept. Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 18:79.
Giebeler, R.H. (1969). High power microwave generation. Journal of Microwave Power, 4:79.
Goeckerman, R.H. and Perlman, I. (1948). Characteristics of bismuth fission and high energy particles. Physical Review, 73:1127.
Grand, P. (1979). Accelerator breeding, or the use of high energy accelerators in the nuclear fuel cycle. Nature, 278:693.
Hagerman, D.C. (1979), LAMPF operations at 500 µA. In Proceedings of the 1979 Linear Accelerator Conference. BNL-51134. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, p. 78.
Horak, J. (1977). Materials technology for accelerator production of fissile isotopes. In the Proceedings of the Information Meeting on Accelerator Breeding. CONF-770107. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, p. 232.
Kapchinskii, I.M. and Teplyakov, V.A. (1970). Linear ion accelerator with spatially homogeneous strong focusing. Pribou i Tekhnika Eksperimenta, 119(2): 19.
Lewis, W.B. (1952). The significance of the yield of neutrons from heavy nuclei excited to high energies. Report AECL-968. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River, Ontario.
Lien, E.L. (1970). High efficiency klystron amplifiers. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Microwave and Optical Generation and Amplification, 8th, Amsterdam, September 1970. Kluwer, Deventer, The Netherlands, p. 11.
Livermore Research Laboratory (1954). Status of the MTA (Materials Testing Accelerator) process. Report LRL-102. Livermore Research Laboratory, Livermore, California.
Mynatt, F.R., Alsmiller, R.G., Jr., Barish, J., Gabriel, T.A., Bartine, D.E., Burns, T.J., Martin, J.A., Saltmarsh, M.J., and Bettis, E.S. (1977). Preliminary report on the promise of Accelerator Breeding and Converter Reactor Symbiosis (ABACS) as an alternative energy system. Report ORNL/TM-5750. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Nucleonics Week (1981). Nucleonics Week, 22 (8, February 26).
O’Connor, P.R. and Seaborg, G.T. (1948). High energy spallation and fission products of uranium. Physical Review, 74:1189.
Potter, J.M., Williams, S.W., Humphry, F.J., and Rodenz, G.W. (1979). Radio frequency quadrupole accelerating structure research at Los Alamos. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 26(3):3745.
Russell, G.J., Gilmore, J.S., Proel, R.E., Robinson, H., and Howe, S.D. (1980). Spallation target-moderator-reflector studies at the Weapons Research Facility. In Proceedings of theSymposium on Neutron Cross-Sections from 10 to 50 MeV. BNL-NCS-51245. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, p. 169.
Schriber, S.O., Eraser, J.S., and Tunnieliffe, P.R. (1977). Future of high intensity accelerators in nuclear energy. In Proceedings of the International Conference on High Energy Accelerators, Xth. CERN, Geneva, Vol. 2, p. 408.
Steinberg, M., Powell, J.R., Takahashi, H., Grand, P., and Kouts, H.J.C. (1979). The linear accelerator fuel enricher-regenerator (LAFER) and fission product transmuter (APEX). IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 26 (3):3002.
Straker, E.A., Stevens, P.N., Irving, D.C., and Cain, V.R. (1970). The MORSE code — A multigroup neutron and gamma ray Monte Carlo transport code. Report ORNL-4585. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Tunnieliffe, P.R., Chidley, B.G., and Fraser, J.S. (1976). High current proton linear accelerator and nuclear power. In Proceedings of the 1976 Proton Linear Accelerator Conference. Report AECL-5677. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River, Ontario.
Warner, D.J. (1972). Accelerator research and development with the CERN 3-MeV linac. In Proceedings of the 1972 Proton Linear Accelerator Conference. Report LA-5115. Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, California.
Weinberg, A.M. (1981). The future of nuclear energy. Physics Today, 34(3):48.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1983 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg/Austria
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fraser, J.S. (1983). Accelerator Breeder Applications. In: Bauer, G.S., McDonald, A. (eds) Nuclear Technologies in a Sustainable Energy System. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81988-9_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81988-9_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-81990-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-81988-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive