Research and Development Roadmaps for Liquid Metal Cooled Fast Reactors – Draft for Public Comment

Abstract

Nuclear power provides clean, reliable energy contributing about 20 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. It supplies approximately 60 percent of our non-greenhouse-gas emitting power making it our nation's single largest contributor of carbon-free electricity. This vital component of the U.S. energy portfolio avoids hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year and supports hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, and yet is facing unprecedented challenges. Complex market factors, failing alternative generation costs and lower electricity demand forecasts have made operating nuclear power plants uneconomical in some parts of the country. The industry is confronting premature shut downs, a lack of new plants in the pipeline, profound market challenges, and intense financing requirements. However, none of these challenges reflect a reduced need for this reliable and clean source of baseload power. Our nation's nuclear sector urgently needs to adjust to these challenges to ensure continued availability of this vital national energy resource.The Department of Energy is aggressively working to revise, revitalize, and expand U.S. nuclear energy capacity. By leveraging public-private partnerships and the national laboratory system, we are developing an advanced nuclear infrastructure, encouraging a resilient supply chain. Innovative advanced reactor concepts offer significant potential benefits, including possible lower costs, enhanced safety and security, greater resource utilization, and easier operation, as well as a supply of high-paying jobs. In order to promote a healthy advanced reactor pipeline in the United States, the Department of Energy (DOE) conducts early stage R&D on advanced reactor technologies to support the rapid development of innovative advanced reactors already being led by the U.S. industry.

Report on Fuel Cycle Facility Requirements for Deployment of Demonstration Reactors and Potential Evolutionary Fuel Cycle Scenarios

“…Various advanced nuclear technologies, such as a very high burnup fuel for B&B mode operation in a fast reactor, separation technologies for recycling used nuclear fuels (UNF), etc., are currently under development by the nuclear industry [Neider 2021] and DOE-NE. The R&D roadmaps for the advanced nuclear technology development [Croson et al 2017, Kim et al 2018 indicate that the technologies will be available commercially after 2050. Thus, using advanced nuclear technologies, the long-term fuel cycles could evolve to other fuel cycles such as a continuous recycling fuel cycle, a B&B once-through fuel cycle, etc.…”

Application of ANSYS FLUENT MHD code for liquid metal magnetohydrodynamic studies

“…Liquid metals are considered as prospective coolants due to their high thermal conductivity, higher boiling temperature and low vapour pressure. They are used in many industrial applications as well as in reactor relevant technology development, such as metal processing/mixing, crystal growth, heat exchangers in nuclear reactors, electromagnetic pumps, magneto hydro dynamic (MHD) flow meters with liquid metal as the process fluid, generation of artificial dynamos and neutron spallation source target development [1][2][3][4][5]. In the liquid breeder blanket, liquid metal is used as a coolant/breeder.…”