Summary
Currently about 11% of the world's energy is produced in nuclear power plants; this implies the processing of uranium in order to enrich it to be suitable for “burning” in a nuclear reactor. Besides other environmental and monetary costs involved in the whole nuclear fuel cycle, the enrichment process has the disadvantage of producing depleted uranium as a sub‐product that has no wide use and is essentially stockpiled. One strategy to deal with this issue is to design a nuclear reactor that can run mostly on depleted uranium by breeding its own fissile fuel from it. Even though this concept could sound innovative or new, the truth is that it has been in the thought of the nuclear engineers since the 50s. In the present paper, the breed & burn (B&B) reactor concept is reviewed, as well as its origins, evolution up to present, and its main technical features. The objectives of this review are as follows: (1) to summarize the history of the development of B&B reactors, (2) to compare different B&B concepts based on a systematic approach under selected technical features, and (3) to bring out current trends and future directions on this technology. It is expected that this review will help the nuclear engineering community in general, and newcomer researchers in the field, to get an overview about the B&B reactors and how to direct a research in this direction.
A probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) is being developed for a steam-methane reforming hydrogen production plant linked to a high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor (HTGR). This work is based on the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute's (JAERI) High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) prototype in Japan. The objective of this paper is to show how the PSA can be used for improving the design of the coupled plants. A simplified HAZOP study was performed to identify initiating events, based on existing studies. The results of the PSA show that the average frequency of an accident at this complex that could affect the population is 7 × 10 −8 year −1 which is divided into the various end states. The dominant sequences are those that result in a methane explosion and occur with a frequency of 6.5 × 10 −8 year −1 , while the other sequences are much less frequent. The health risk presents itself if there are people in the vicinity who could be affected by the explosion. This analysis also demonstrates that an accident in one of the plants has little effect on the other. This is true given the design base distance between the plants, the fact that the reactor is underground, as well as other safety characteristics of the HTGR.
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