The Potential of the LFR and the ELSY Project

Cinotti, L.; Smith, Craig F.; Sienicki, James J.; Abderrahim, Hamid Aı̈t; Benamati, G.; Locatelli, Giorgio; Monti, Stefano; Wider, H.; Struwe, D.; Orden, A.; Hwang, Il Soon

doi:10.1051/rgn/20074030

Cited by 30 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The ELSY design of a lead-cooled fast reactor with mixed oxide fuel made by a European collaboration [15] has an exceptionally good performance under loss of flow accidents. The margin to melt for the fuel is however no better than for the corresponding SFRs, resulting in a similar power penalty when introducing americium into the core [16].…”

Section: Lead Coolantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physics of Americium Transmutation

Wallenius¹

2012

Nuclear Engineering and Technology

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Section: Lead Coolantmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physics of Americium Transmutation

Wallenius¹

2012

Nuclear Engineering and Technology

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“…This is due to the lack of FP. On the other hand, in the equilibrium case, the power peak at BOC (444.5 W/cm 3 ) is about 1% smaller than that at BOL, which means a very steady power distribution. The obtained results will not require complicated operations in the fl ow control.…”

Section: Core Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The reference reactor core proposed as an application of the equilibrium approaches is based on the 1500-MWth (600 MWe) ELSY core design [3]. The ELFR core parameters are presented in Table 1.…”

Section: The Reference Leader Corementioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling minor actinide multiple recycling in a lead-cooled fast reactor to demonstrate a fuel cycle without long-lived nuclear waste

2015

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The concept of closed nuclear fuel cycle seems to be the most promising options for the efficient usage of the nuclear energy resources. However, it can be implemented only in fast breeder reactors of the IVth generation, which are characterized by the fast neutron spectrum. The lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) was defined and studied on the level of technical design in order to demonstrate its performance and reliability within the European collaboration on ELSY (European Lead-cooled System) and LEADER (Lead-cooled European Advanced Demonstration Reactor) projects. It has been demonstrated that LFR meets the requirements of the closed nuclear fuel cycle, where plutonium and minor actinides (MA) are recycled for reuse, thereby producing no MA waste. In this study, the most promising option was realized when entire Pu + MA material is fully recycled to produce a new batch of fuel without partitioning. This is the concept of a fuel cycle which asymptotically tends to the adiabatic equilibrium, where the concentrations of plutonium and MA at the beginning of the cycle are restored in the subsequent cycle in the combined process of fuel transmutation and cooling, removal of fission products (FPs), and admixture of depleted uranium. In this way, generation of nuclear waste containing radioactive plutonium and MA can be eliminated. The paper shows methodology applied to the LFR equilibrium fuel cycle assessment, which was developed for the Monte Carlo continuous energy burnup (MCB) code, equipped with enhanced modules for material processing and fuel handling. The numerical analysis of the reactor core concerns multiple recycling and recovery of long-lived nuclides and their influence on safety parameters. The paper also presents a general concept of the novel IVth generation breeder reactor with equilibrium fuel and its future role in the management of MA.

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“…Viability will be established through focused R&D tasks and with formulation of a technically defensible pre-conceptual design [8].…”

Section: Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

SSTAR: The US lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR)

Smith

Halsey

Brown

et al. 2008

Journal of Nuclear Materials

157

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ABSTRACT. It is widely recognized that the developing world is the next area for major energy demand growth, including demand for new and advanced nuclear energy systems. With limited existing industrial and grid infrastructures, there will be an important need for future nuclear energy systems that can provide small or moderate increments of electric power (10-700 MWe) on small or immature grids in developing nations. Most recently, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) has identified, as one of its key objectives, the development and demonstration of concepts for small and medium sized reactors (SMRs) that can be globally deployed while assuring a high level of proliferation resistance. Lead-cooled systems offer several key advantages in meeting these goals. The small lead-cooled fast reactor concept known as the Small Secure Transportable Autonomous Reactor (SSTAR) reactor has been under ongoing development under the U.S. Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative. It a system designed to provide energy security to developing nations while incorporating features to achieve nonproliferation aims, anticipating GNEP objectives. This paper presents the motivation for development of internationally deployable nuclear energy systems as well as a summary of one such system, SSTAR, which is the U.S. Generation IV Lead-cooled Fast Reactor system. INTRODUCTION.It is widely known that the developing world is the next area for major energy demand growth. This is the part of the world where population growth is high and, furthermore, the gap between the current levels of energy availability and the levels needed to sustain economic growth is also great. There is a diversity of different scenarios for supplky of expanded energy resources ranging from large and highlyt concentrated population centers of countries like China and india to remote and isolated communities (which also may be quite large). In addition, in many cases, existing electric grid capacity is limited and not readily able to accept lthe large increments of generating capacity represented by current central station nuclear power plants. Finally, industrial infrastructures are frequently limited and not able to provide the support needed for large central station plant construction, maintenenace and operation.

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The Potential of the LFR and the ELSY Project

Abstract: -This paper presents the current status of the development of the Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR)

Cited by 30 publications

References 2 publications

Physics of Americium Transmutation

Physics of Americium Transmutation

Modeling minor actinide multiple recycling in a lead-cooled fast reactor to demonstrate a fuel cycle without long-lived nuclear waste

SSTAR: The US lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR)

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