Characterization of alternative FBR development strategies

Abstract

CONTENTS 1.0 SUMMARY 29 33.2 1.3• vendor commitment -A firm commitment to accelerate FBR commercialization will entail heavy industry involvement, which has the effect of reducing cost and time uncertainties.3.17 10 J. P. Thereault

Summary: analysis of alternative FBR development strategies

“…The strategies were designed to cover a range of possible approaches to the further development of the FBR. The strategies and the methods used to characterize them are described in Boegel and Clausen (1981) and are summarized in Section 3.1. An important part of the characterization is the time required to complete each strategy.…”

“…These factors were considered probabilistically by White and Merrill (1981), who derived a probability distribution for the date that the FBR will be competitive. Boegel and Clausen (1981) developed the costs as well as the completion times of the seven strategies. Costs were derived probabilistically.…”

“…Some of the data were available from the literature, some of it was developed from expert opinion, and some was calculated. Boegel and Clausen (1981) concluded that a number of factors strongly affect the time (and time uncertainty) it takes to develop the FBR from its present state of technology to the point that it is commercially competitive. These factors and their impacts are: scale-up -Scaling a plant up from a given size, for which there is design and operating experience, to a larger size results in extra time and uncertainty.…”

“…To account for these factors, we designed the alternative strategies (Boegel and Clausen 1981) to cover a wide range of time, to vary the amount of component testing done, and to vary the degree of scale-up required. Combinations of plant size and timing alone offer an almost limitless number of development options.…”