"When the fuel of a conventional LWR is spent it still contains around 90% of fissile material"
Correction. It is more like 97% fissile material. 1% of which is plutonium. The rest being almost all U-238, a bit of U-235 remains.
I would mention these reactors, from Copenhagen Atomics, 40MWe each, high temperature molten salt, fits inside a standard shipping container (just the reactor, alternators and steam generators are external) and runs on Spent Nuclear Fuel + Thorium.
Energy Future Unveiled! THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, Copenhagen Atomics:
And China is now operating a Thorium Molten Salt Test Reactor, a breeder, 2MWth.
Russia has been running their BN-800 sodium fast reactor since 2016 and their BN-600 since 1981 and is planning on building 3 BN-1200's and China is currently building 2 CFR-600 Sodium Fast reactors. One is already in operation. Russia is planning on closing the fuel cycle with BN-1200's on their PWR's and expect the BN-1200's to be lower cost than their LWR's.
India has already loaded fuel into its first Sodium Fast reactor and is also planning on closing their fuel cycle with their 500MWe fast reactors and PHWR-700 reactors eventually running on natural thorium. Their PHWR reactors are the lowest cost reactors in service Worldwide right now, under $2000/kw.
The US had a highly successful FBR program with the EBR-II, meant to develop the IFR. This was shutdown for the most obscene corrupt political reasons by sleazoids Bill Clinton & John Kerry. They even slapped a muzzle order on the scientists & engineers who worked on the project.
And speaking of actually advanced reactors, these can be built right now, CANDU EC6's running on the new ANEEL Thorium/HALEU fuel that are 7X more fuel efficient, produce very little plutonium, 7X less waste, refueled online, existing and fully operating supply chain, 96% Canadian produced. No need for a giant custom built pressure vessel. And CANDU's have run continuously for over 3yrs - 100% CF.
Canada's CANDU's produced 87.2 TWh in 2022 vs the giant James Bay hydro project which produces 83TWh/yr avg. With the total land area (including mining & fuel processing) of CANDU nuclear @ 20 sq. km vs James Bay hydro of 17,000 sq.km
Thorium + HALEU = Clean Core Thorium Energy: Mark Nelson @ TEAC11:
"...IMSR cogeneration plants are efficient machines. The IMSR generates heat at high temperature (585 degree C steam). They have a thermal efficiency of 44%, a near 50% efficiency improvement. Conventional nuclear power plants use water as the reactor coolant and must operate at low temperatures...."
I'd also mention Kairos, the FLIBE molten salt/TRISO design that has been approved for construction (demo scale) by the NRC. It seems to be further along in the US approval process than any of the other molten salt designs.
More info on the Integral Fast Reactor, and pyroprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, that would be running right now in the US if not for slimeballs Bill Clinton & Climate Change Czar John Kerry.
With the IFR, 1oz of natural uranium, depleted uranium or spent nuclear fuel would supply one American's lifetime share of US primary energy, TPES/per capita. And generate 0.17oz of waste which only needs to be contained for 300yrs. Drop it down a borehole. Easy-peesy. An unlimited energy supply. You don't even have to mine uranium any more. Read all about it here: "Plentiful Energy, The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor" by Charles E. Till and Yoon Il Chang, 2011. IFR free book download:
And the Bankster stooge, Malthusian Jimmy Carter, ordered Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing be made illegal in America. And instituted the NRC, Nuclear Rejection Commission, whose job it was to make sure no more Nuclear Power Reactors were built in the US and would stifle their construction around the World. They succeeded at their task.
Listen to the top Nuclear physicists Charles Till and Yoon Il Chang on the early history of the wealthy anti-nuclear movement, from page 14 of their book on the IFR, Plentiful Energy:
"....Organized opposition had begun, arguing environmentalism initially, and then joined by proliferation-related attacks. In the last year or two of the sixties the attacks had begun and with growing influence, by the mid-seventies the anti-nuclear groups had had their way. Their strategy focused on driving up the cost of nuclear power plant construction, so far up that the plants would be uneconomic, if possible. To do so, they attacked every issue that could be used to insert the legal system into interference with construction decisions, blocking construction progress by any means possible. In so doing they introduced very lengthy construction delays. Success in delaying nuclear construction while interest on the borrowed construction funding kept increasing and increasing eventually made their argument self-fulfilling. They had made their assertion a reality; nuclear construction was now expensive. Every possible facet of the legal system was used. Plant after plant with financing in place for billions of dollars, and interest charges running up, had construction held up month after month, year after year, by one legal challenge after another, as a rule related in some way to environmental permits. Nuclear opponents could congratulate themselves; they had destroyed an industry. Their strategy had been a brilliant success. To what purpose, though, may one ask? It stopped orderly progression of nuclear power development and implementation by the U. S., and, indeed, led to similarly destructive movements in other countries too. The world then went back to fossil energy and hundreds, more probably thousands, of new fossil fuel plants have gone into operation in the years since then...."
And the shutdown began Before TMI, forty planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the TMI accident.
Spent fuel is a uniquely attractive source of fissile, since the transuranics can be isolated with simple chemistry, producing a concentrated fuel salt without any need for mining or enrichment. However, fast reactors need an enormous amount of fissile, so few can be started, and each will be expensive. If their only purpose is to "destroy waste", they will not be economical and thus require subsidy. Worse yet, breeding enough plutonium for another core will take many decades, irrevocably slowing deployment and committing us to a future with a great increase in uranium mining and enrichment, adding substantial cost and delays.
We shouldn't be so hasty to "solve" the waste problem, because there is a much better option: burning the transuranics within a thorium blanket, creating U-233 instead of plutonium. This is the one-time startup fissile needed by thermal spectrum breeders, which require only a tiny fraction of the fissile, allowing many more reactors to be started from existing spent fuel resources. Producing U-233 will also make the processing of spent fuel inherently profitable, while the far more resource and fuel efficient reactors (that don't need uranium mining or enrichment) can be produced and deployed much more rapidly.
This is the "holy grail", not waste burning. See Flibe Energy (https://flibe.com/) and Copenhagen Atomics (https://www.copenhagenatomics.com/). Even CANDUs can become breeders with Th/U-233 fuel. U-233 is just a better fissile for reactors, and also has invaluable medical applications as well, like Targeted Alpha Therapy (https://youtu.be/ltiU5ZUXKCE).
I'm not a fan of TRISO, but Kairos Power's KP-FHR (https://kairospower.com/technology/) is much more attractive than either the HTR-PM or Xe-100, and a bit less wasteful of the expensive and non-recyclable fuel pebbles, which the gas-cooled reactors need in quantities of hundreds of thousands.
The key metric really remains: $/MWe. Cost is the factor that will decide what gets built. There might be some credit for burning up spent fuel stockpiles. Flexibility is only really valuable if $/MWe is low enough - otherwise it is easily out-competed by gas or hydro in countries that have the resource. Ditto process heat (though not from hydro, obviously).
In turn, cost is largely determined by what degree of anti nuclear stance is taken by regulators. Groundhog day.
Well I can't match the erudite contributions your article has elicited, but I found it highly educational and on the strength of it, have become a paid subscriber. I'm also pleased to learn that so much is going on.
Having blown hot and cold over nuclear, I'm now convinced the world needs it, and that we lost our way for too long.
One regret or criticism I have of the industry is that perhaps in the quest for improvement, a "factory line" of good-enough reactors has only recently become a goal. The best may be the enemy of the good.
"When the fuel of a conventional LWR is spent it still contains around 90% of fissile material"
Correction. It is more like 97% fissile material. 1% of which is plutonium. The rest being almost all U-238, a bit of U-235 remains.
I would mention these reactors, from Copenhagen Atomics, 40MWe each, high temperature molten salt, fits inside a standard shipping container (just the reactor, alternators and steam generators are external) and runs on Spent Nuclear Fuel + Thorium.
Energy Future Unveiled! THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, Copenhagen Atomics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IntvWo4mo
THORIUM: World's CHEAPEST Energy! [Science Unveiled]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U434Sy9BGf8
And China is now operating a Thorium Molten Salt Test Reactor, a breeder, 2MWth.
Russia has been running their BN-800 sodium fast reactor since 2016 and their BN-600 since 1981 and is planning on building 3 BN-1200's and China is currently building 2 CFR-600 Sodium Fast reactors. One is already in operation. Russia is planning on closing the fuel cycle with BN-1200's on their PWR's and expect the BN-1200's to be lower cost than their LWR's.
India has already loaded fuel into its first Sodium Fast reactor and is also planning on closing their fuel cycle with their 500MWe fast reactors and PHWR-700 reactors eventually running on natural thorium. Their PHWR reactors are the lowest cost reactors in service Worldwide right now, under $2000/kw.
The US had a highly successful FBR program with the EBR-II, meant to develop the IFR. This was shutdown for the most obscene corrupt political reasons by sleazoids Bill Clinton & John Kerry. They even slapped a muzzle order on the scientists & engineers who worked on the project.
And speaking of actually advanced reactors, these can be built right now, CANDU EC6's running on the new ANEEL Thorium/HALEU fuel that are 7X more fuel efficient, produce very little plutonium, 7X less waste, refueled online, existing and fully operating supply chain, 96% Canadian produced. No need for a giant custom built pressure vessel. And CANDU's have run continuously for over 3yrs - 100% CF.
Canada's CANDU's produced 87.2 TWh in 2022 vs the giant James Bay hydro project which produces 83TWh/yr avg. With the total land area (including mining & fuel processing) of CANDU nuclear @ 20 sq. km vs James Bay hydro of 17,000 sq.km
Thorium + HALEU = Clean Core Thorium Energy: Mark Nelson @ TEAC11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAUDuaqpVW8
And Terrestrial Energy's IMSR-400 is under Phase 2 CNSC review in Canada:
https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/technology/advantage/
"...IMSR cogeneration plants are efficient machines. The IMSR generates heat at high temperature (585 degree C steam). They have a thermal efficiency of 44%, a near 50% efficiency improvement. Conventional nuclear power plants use water as the reactor coolant and must operate at low temperatures...."
I'd also mention Kairos, the FLIBE molten salt/TRISO design that has been approved for construction (demo scale) by the NRC. It seems to be further along in the US approval process than any of the other molten salt designs.
More info on the Integral Fast Reactor, and pyroprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, that would be running right now in the US if not for slimeballs Bill Clinton & Climate Change Czar John Kerry.
With the IFR, 1oz of natural uranium, depleted uranium or spent nuclear fuel would supply one American's lifetime share of US primary energy, TPES/per capita. And generate 0.17oz of waste which only needs to be contained for 300yrs. Drop it down a borehole. Easy-peesy. An unlimited energy supply. You don't even have to mine uranium any more. Read all about it here: "Plentiful Energy, The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor" by Charles E. Till and Yoon Il Chang, 2011. IFR free book download:
thesciencecouncil.com/pdfs/PlentifulEnergy.pdf
And the Bankster stooge, Malthusian Jimmy Carter, ordered Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing be made illegal in America. And instituted the NRC, Nuclear Rejection Commission, whose job it was to make sure no more Nuclear Power Reactors were built in the US and would stifle their construction around the World. They succeeded at their task.
Listen to the top Nuclear physicists Charles Till and Yoon Il Chang on the early history of the wealthy anti-nuclear movement, from page 14 of their book on the IFR, Plentiful Energy:
"....Organized opposition had begun, arguing environmentalism initially, and then joined by proliferation-related attacks. In the last year or two of the sixties the attacks had begun and with growing influence, by the mid-seventies the anti-nuclear groups had had their way. Their strategy focused on driving up the cost of nuclear power plant construction, so far up that the plants would be uneconomic, if possible. To do so, they attacked every issue that could be used to insert the legal system into interference with construction decisions, blocking construction progress by any means possible. In so doing they introduced very lengthy construction delays. Success in delaying nuclear construction while interest on the borrowed construction funding kept increasing and increasing eventually made their argument self-fulfilling. They had made their assertion a reality; nuclear construction was now expensive. Every possible facet of the legal system was used. Plant after plant with financing in place for billions of dollars, and interest charges running up, had construction held up month after month, year after year, by one legal challenge after another, as a rule related in some way to environmental permits. Nuclear opponents could congratulate themselves; they had destroyed an industry. Their strategy had been a brilliant success. To what purpose, though, may one ask? It stopped orderly progression of nuclear power development and implementation by the U. S., and, indeed, led to similarly destructive movements in other countries too. The world then went back to fossil energy and hundreds, more probably thousands, of new fossil fuel plants have gone into operation in the years since then...."
And the shutdown began Before TMI, forty planned nuclear power plants already had been canceled before the TMI accident.
Spent fuel is a uniquely attractive source of fissile, since the transuranics can be isolated with simple chemistry, producing a concentrated fuel salt without any need for mining or enrichment. However, fast reactors need an enormous amount of fissile, so few can be started, and each will be expensive. If their only purpose is to "destroy waste", they will not be economical and thus require subsidy. Worse yet, breeding enough plutonium for another core will take many decades, irrevocably slowing deployment and committing us to a future with a great increase in uranium mining and enrichment, adding substantial cost and delays.
We shouldn't be so hasty to "solve" the waste problem, because there is a much better option: burning the transuranics within a thorium blanket, creating U-233 instead of plutonium. This is the one-time startup fissile needed by thermal spectrum breeders, which require only a tiny fraction of the fissile, allowing many more reactors to be started from existing spent fuel resources. Producing U-233 will also make the processing of spent fuel inherently profitable, while the far more resource and fuel efficient reactors (that don't need uranium mining or enrichment) can be produced and deployed much more rapidly.
This is the "holy grail", not waste burning. See Flibe Energy (https://flibe.com/) and Copenhagen Atomics (https://www.copenhagenatomics.com/). Even CANDUs can become breeders with Th/U-233 fuel. U-233 is just a better fissile for reactors, and also has invaluable medical applications as well, like Targeted Alpha Therapy (https://youtu.be/ltiU5ZUXKCE).
I'm not a fan of TRISO, but Kairos Power's KP-FHR (https://kairospower.com/technology/) is much more attractive than either the HTR-PM or Xe-100, and a bit less wasteful of the expensive and non-recyclable fuel pebbles, which the gas-cooled reactors need in quantities of hundreds of thousands.
Thanks for the article and comments. Very informative.
The key metric really remains: $/MWe. Cost is the factor that will decide what gets built. There might be some credit for burning up spent fuel stockpiles. Flexibility is only really valuable if $/MWe is low enough - otherwise it is easily out-competed by gas or hydro in countries that have the resource. Ditto process heat (though not from hydro, obviously).
In turn, cost is largely determined by what degree of anti nuclear stance is taken by regulators. Groundhog day.
Well I can't match the erudite contributions your article has elicited, but I found it highly educational and on the strength of it, have become a paid subscriber. I'm also pleased to learn that so much is going on.
Having blown hot and cold over nuclear, I'm now convinced the world needs it, and that we lost our way for too long.
One regret or criticism I have of the industry is that perhaps in the quest for improvement, a "factory line" of good-enough reactors has only recently become a goal. The best may be the enemy of the good.
Kathryn Porter had an inside look at the shocking state of nuclear regulation here:
https://watt-logic.com/2024/04/14/nuclear-regulation/