Advanced Demonstration and Test Reactor Options Study

Abstract

This report presents the results of an assessment of advanced reactor technology options and is intended to provide a sound comparative technical context for future decisions concerning these technologies. A wide variety of important missions and advanced reactor technology needs were identified based on recent Department of Energy and international studies. Strategic objectives were established that span the range of key nuclear energy missions and needs. A broad team of stakeholders from industry, academia and government was assembled as part of the study. The team developed a comprehensive set of goals, criteria and metrics to evaluate advanced test and demonstration reactor concepts. Point designs of a select number of concepts were commissioned to provide a deeper technical basis for evaluation. The technology options were compared on the bases of technical maturity and the ability to meet the different strategic objectives. Pathways to deployment for concepts of varying technical maturity were estimated for the different demonstration systems with regard to cost, schedule and possible licensing approaches. This study also presents the tradeoffs that exist among the different irradiation test reactor options in terms of the ability to conduct irradiations in support of advanced reactor R&D and to serve potential secondary missions. viii EXECUTIVE SUMMARYGlobal efforts to address climate change will require large-scale decarbonization of energy production in the United States and elsewhere. Nuclear power already provides 20% of electricity production in the United States (U.S.) and is increasing in countries undergoing rapid growth around the world. Because reliable, grid-stabilizing, low-emission electricity generation, energy security, and energy resource diversity will be increasingly valued, nuclear power's share of electricity production has a potential to grow. In addition, there are non-electricity applications (e.g., process heat, desalination, hydrogen production) that could be better served by advanced nuclear systems. Thus, the timely development, demonstration, and commercialization of advanced nuclear reactors could diversify the nuclear through a combination of both new and existing facilities. From a long-term perspective, many advanced concepts will benefit from an irradiation test reactor that can support fuel and material testing and qualification. Design and construction of an irradiation test reactor are estimated to take about 10 to 13 years. Cost estimates for these irradiation test reactors are both around $3 billion and are highly uncertain at this early stage in the design process.xii Licensing OptionsThe licensing options also vary by concept maturity. For the mature concepts (HTGR and SFR), both reactor vendors providing demonstration reactor point designs have reported they would pursue a commercial power reactor Class 103 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license. Considerable data exist from past demonstration projects and R&D activities conducted over the past 50 years to supp...

A retrospective analysis of funding and focus in US advanced fission innovation

“…Released by its Research Advisory Council in 2001, it laid out a path for deploying new reactors as a logical and desirable follow-on to existing LWRs [17]. Starting in 2002, NE released roadmaps that outlined a strategy to start building an advanced, non-light water design by 2017 [15][16][17][18][19]. While these roadmaps catalogue NE's progress in advancing the designs it supports, and occasionally provide timelines for eventual deployment, they rarely provide a systematic analysis of how to achieve NE's objectives.…”

“…To appreciate just how modest advanced reactor research expenditures have been, consider that recent estimates of the amount required to shepherd one advanced reactor technology through design completion and licensing exceed $1 billion; the full-scale demonstration of a new reactor technology is estimated to require anywhere from $4 billion [19] to $13 billion [32]. Hence, the total investment required to bring a new design to the point where it could be commercially developed and deployed is on the order of $10 billion.…”

“…Hence, the total investment required to bring a new design to the point where it could be commercially developed and deployed is on the order of $10 billion. Given the history of cost overruns associated with new nuclear technologies, these estimates, which were spelled out in NE's advanced reactor roadmap and in subsequent reports [15][16][17][18][19], are likely to be optimistic. Either way, the total amount expended on advanced nuclear power by NE over the past 18 years-spread across multiple fuel types and technologies-has been substantially less than the government investment required to ready one non-light water design for commercial deployment.…”

“…In the US, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) has embraced this transition, and its support is needed if this future is ever to materialize in the US, since it is charged with catalyzing nuclear fission innovation [14]. However, despite repeated commitments to a non-light water future [15][16][17][18] and non-trivial investments by NE, no such design is remotely ready for deployment today [19].…”

The Future of Low-Carbon Electricity

“…HTGR technologies are being deployed in China with two modular HTR-PM commercial demonstration units (62) scheduled to come online in the near term, replacing coal-fired power plants (63). These examples are indicative of the promise of advanced reactor technologies in novel missions, and show strong potential for near-term commercial deployment (56).…”