a phased development of breed-and-burn reactors for enhanced nuclear energy sustainabilitybreed-and-burn反应堆的阶段性发展增强核能的可持续性.pdfVIP

Sustainability 2012, 4, 2745-2764; doi:10.3390/su4102745 OPEN ACCESS sustainability ISSN 2071-1050 /journal/sustainability Article A Phased Development of Breed-and-Burn Reactors for Enhanced Nuclear Energy Sustainability Ehud Greenspan University of California Nuclear Engineering Department, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; E-Mail: gehud@; Tel.: +1-510-643-9983; Fax: +1-510-643-9685 Received: 3 September 2012; in revised form: 24 September 2012 / Accepted: 28 September 2012 / Published: 19 October 2012 Abstract: Several options for designing fast reactors to operate in the Breed-and-Burn (BB) mode are compared and a strategy is outlined for early introduction of BB reactors followed by a gradual increase in the fuel utilization of such reactors. In the first phase the fast reactor core will consist of a subcritical BB blanket driven by a relatively small critical seed. As the required discharge burnup/radiation-damage to both driver and blanket fuel had already been proven, and as the depleted uranium fueled BB blanket could generate close to 2/3 of the core power and will have very low fuel cycle cost, the deployment of such fast reactors could start in the near future. The second phase consists of deploying self-sustaining stationary wave BB reactors. It will require development of fuel technology that could withstand peak burnups of ~30% and peak radiation damage to the cladding of ~550 dpa. The third phase requires development of a fuel reconditioning