ACTINIDE BURNING IN A LEAD-BISMUTH-COOLED CRITICAL FAST REACTOR WITH ECONOMIC ELECTRICITY GENERATION *
A Lead Bismuth-cooled fast reactor concept for actinide burning and low-cost electricity production and excellent safety characteristics is proposed. The concept employs metallic thoriumbased fuel (Th-U-Pu-MA-Zr) in a 700 MWth core. The transuranics destruction rate per MWth-yr is 66% that of an accelerator-driven system using the same initial transuranics composition in fertile-free fuel. Coolant void reactivity mitigation is achieved through the use of streaming fuel assemblies and both the Doppler and fuel thermal expansion feedback are negative. The small negative fuel temperature and coolant temperature reactivity coefficients and negative core radial expansion coefficient provide self-regulating characteristics, so that the reactor is capable of inherent shutdown in major transients without scram, as in the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). * This project is supported by an INEEL Laboratory Directed Research and Development Project.
The U.S. accelerator transmutation of waste program
Abstract A national project to develop a future capability to separate actinides and long-lived fission products from spent fuel, to transmute them, and to dispose off the remaining waste in optimal waste forms has begun in the United States. This project is based on the Accelerator-driven Transmutation of Waste (ATW) program developed during the 1990s at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and has its technological roots in several technologies that have been developed by the multi-mission laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In the Fiscal Year 1999 Energy and Water Appropriation Act, the U.S. Congress directed the DOE to study ATW and by the end of FY99 to prepare a “roadmap” for developing this technology. DOE convened a steering committee, assembled four technical working groups consisting of members from many national laboratories, and consulted with several individual international and national experts. The finished product, “A Roadmap for Developing ATW Technology – A Report to Congress,” recommends a five-year, $281 M, science-based, technical-risk-reduction program. This paper provides an overview of the U.S. Roadmap for developing ATW technology, the organization of the national ATW Project, the critical issues in subsystems and technological options, deployment scenarios, institutional challenges, and academic and international collaboration.
Techno-economic analysis of chemical looping combustion with humid air turbine power cycle
Abstract Power generation from fossil fuel-fired power plant is the largest single source of CO2 emission. CO2 emission contributes to climate change. On the other hand, renewable energy is hindered by complex constraints in dealing with large scale application and high price. Power generation from fossil fuels with CO2 capture is therefore necessary to meet the increasing energy demand, and reduce the emission of CO2. This paper presents a process simulation and economic analysis of the chemical looping combustion (CLC) integrated with humid air turbine (HAT) cycle for natural gas-fired power plant with CO2 capture. The study shows that the CLC–HAT including CO2 capture has a thermal efficiency of 57% at oxidizing temperature of 1200 °C and reducer inlet temperature of 530 °C. The economic evaluation shows that the 50 MWth plant with a projected lifetime of 30 years will have a payback period of 7 years and 6 years for conventional HAT and CLC–HAT cycles respectively. The analysis indicates that CLC–HAT process has a high potential to be commercialised.