Abstract
The Systems Analysis and Integration Campaign of the U.S. DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE NE) has been compiling information on the advanced nuclear energy systems that are currently under development by industries, universities, national laboratories, and foreign nuclear entities. The number of those advanced reactor concepts has been increasing since 2000 and is being accelerated recently in the United States because of the investment of private capital and the various initiatives of DOE NE. In this paper, sixty-three advanced reactor concepts have been reviewed and the potential nuclear fuel cycles utilizing them are summarized. Small reactor size with affordable construction cost, higher thermal efficiency, passive safety features, high security, and lower environmental impacts is the general trend of the advanced reactor concepts. The traditional coolant materials for thermal and fast neutron spectrum reactors have been changed in the advanced reactor concepts with various coolant materials and heat transfer technologies. The claimed fuel cycle performance parameters were assessed and compared with the results of the Evaluation and Screening (E&S) study that was completed in 2014. Most of fuel cycles utilizing advanced reactor concepts are targeting either better fuel cycle performance than for the current LWR-based or substantial waste reduction and higher resource utilization by continuous recycle of used nuclear fuels in fast reactors. The claimed fuel cycle performance with using the advanced reactor concepts is generally consistent with the results of the E&S study, with few inconsistencies. Through additional fuel cycle assessments, however, these inconsistencies were found to be mainly due to the use of different assumptions and data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 750-757 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| State | Published - 2020 |
| Event | 14th International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, GLOBAL 2019 and Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference, TOP FUEL 2019 - Seattle, United States Duration: Sep 22 2019 → Sep 27 2019 |
Conference
| Conference | 14th International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, GLOBAL 2019 and Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference, TOP FUEL 2019 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Seattle |
| Period | 09/22/19 → 09/27/19 |
Funding
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy (Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Supply Chain Office, NE-4) under contract number DE-AC02-06CH11357. The authors would like to thank the national team of the Systems Analysis and Integration (SA&I) Campaign of the DOE NE-4 for collecting, reviewing, and assessing information on the advanced reactor concepts.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Nuclear Energy | DE-AC02-06CH11357 |
