A Comparative Evaluation of Advanced Converters

A Canadian Perspective of the Economic Issues Associated With Deploying Thorium-Based Fuel Cycles and Breeding in Heavy-Water Reactors

“…Studies that focused on the use of thorium-based fuels in nuclear reactors began as early as 1944 [8], at the beginning of what is considered to be the first nuclear era [17,18]. During the first nuclear era, questions that led organizations in the nuclear industry, such as Argonne National Laboratory [19], Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) [20,21] (now Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, CNL), Babcock and Wilcox [22], Oak Ridge National Laboratory [23][24][25][26], Ontario Hydro [27], and Savannah River National Laboratory (Du Pont) [28][29][30][31] to study thorium fuel cycles were primarily: (i) whether there were sufficient uranium resources to ensure the long-term viability of a nuclear power program [32]; and (ii) whether "advanced nuclear fuel cycles improve the economic competitiveness of nuclear power, particularly in the event uranium becomes increasingly expensive" [32]. These primary supply questions led to a series of other economic-related questions [33][34][35].…”

Comparative Evaluation of Sol--Gel Fuel Fabrication Costs.

“…Table 3 gives the total capability of the code. We have used the code in the advanced converter study, 8 the 233 u value study, 14 the HWOCR study, 7 and studies of various reactors with possible desalination applications.…”

Refabrication Technology and Costs for High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor Fuels

“…The dried sol-gel oxide microspheres are fed from the mechanical processing cell by means of a transfer conveyor ( l) through the cell wall to the contaminated fabrication cell where they are charged to the inventory hopper (2). As required by the process, the particles are fed from the inventory hopper to the batch weighing device (3), then conveyed by the spiral elevator (4) to the rotary converter furnace ( 6) .…”

“…If we assume a design and a fabrication technique suitable for refabrication, we may err in estimating certain costs which are sensitive to assumptions regarding manufacturing tolerances. Second, there is a lack of experience in several key areas: (1) fabrication of fueled graphite fuel elements has not been done on a significant scale; (2) there is little experience with recycle fuel and none with refabrication of fueled graphite; and (3) there is no relevant experience with large plant processing or the economies to be effected in large plants fabricating fuel elements for power reactors.…”

“…We have also performed many cost analyses to evaluate reactor systems and to compare the high-temperatiire gas-cooled reactors with other competitive reactor systems. (2) We are concerned in this paper with the speculative refabrication technology for fuel elements that would be used in high-temperature gascooled reactors. The text will discuss our preliminary plans for the refabrication of HTGR fuel and our economic analyses to determine the incremental costs in the process.…”