Morale at Fukushima is plummeting as nuclear cleanup takes its tool. theguardian.com
Forecasts shows Fukushima may get the eye wall of Typhoon Wipha. enenews.com
Blog
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Geiger Readings for October 16, 2013
Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 66 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 72 nanosieverts per hour
Crimini Mushrooms from Top Foods = 89 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 93 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 70 nanosieverts per hour
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Nuclear Reactors 67 – Nuclear Breeder Reactors 8 – History of US Breeder Reactors 4
My recent posts have been about breeder reactors which generate more fissile material than they consume. There is renewed global interest in breeder reactors for the production of nuclear fuel and the destruction of nuclear waste. I have been covering the history of United States breeder reactor research and development in the past several posts. My previous post told about how the U.S. lost interest in breeder reactors in the 1980s. Today, I am going to deal with efforts to sustain and revive research into breeder reactors up to the present day.
Although the liquid metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBR) were the main focus of the U.S. breeder program, other designs for breeder reactors were explored. One design utilized helium gas to cool the reactor. Other designs relied on moderated or thermal neutrons and used either ordinary water or a molten salt as a coolant. These thermal neutron reactors were intended to breed U-233 from thorium. In the molten salt design, the fuel was mixed with the molten salt. The solution was circulated through the core of the reactor and then through a heat exchanger. The molten salt reactor was considered as a possible power plant for a nuclear aircraft carrier. Several of these molten salt reactors were built and tested at Oak Ridge in the 1950 and 1960s. Plans were drawn up for a demonstration reactor called the Molten Salt Breeder Experiment but the LMFBR reactors were the main focus of the AEC and consumed the majority of the funding available. The molten salt breeder reactors were not as efficient as the LMFBR reactors. The molten salt research programs were shut down in the early 1970s as was research into the other alternate breeder reactor designs.
Since the mid 1980 when the breeder reactors programs were cancelled, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the Nuclear Energy program in the U.S. Department of Energy (NEDOE) have worked to reignite interest in breeder reactors. One design that was heavily promoted is called the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). This facility would include a fast breeder plutonium reactor and a spent fuel reprocessing section that would utilize pyroprocessing and electro-refining to separate the plutonium and other transuranics from the spent fuel so they can be used as fuel again. The goals of the ANL and NEDOE were to come up with a breeder reactor facility that would be environmentally safe, produce power economically and would not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately for that last one, it would actually be fairly easy for a country with such a facility to separate pure plutonium for nuclear weapons from the output of the reprocessing.
ANL and NEDOE managed to get some funding to pursue the IFR concept though the 1980 and into the 1990 but the program was finally cancelled by President Clinton and Congress in 1994. NEDOE managed to keep the IFR alive to reprocess the left over nuclear fuel and sodium mixtures from earlier LMFBR experiments. About one third of the waste was reprocessed and in 2006, the DOE came up with an estimate of the cost of reprocessing the remaining two thirds for two hundred and thirty four million dollars. Tomorrow I will discuss current U.S. research on breeder reactors and participation in international organizations dedicated to the development of advanced reactor designs including fast breeders.
Diagram of Molten Salt Reactor Experiment:
MSRE plant diagram: (1) Reactor vessel, (2) Heat exchanger, (3) Fuel pump, (4) Freeze flange, (5) Thermal shield, (6) Coolant pump, (7) Radiator, (8) Coolant drain tank, (9) Fans, (10) Fuel drain tanks, (11) Flush tank, (12) Containment vessel, (13) Freeze valve. Also note Control area in upper left and Chimney upper right.
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Radiation News Roundup for October 15, 2013
International Atomic Energy Agency experts are trying on the ground to sort out work to do away with the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. voiceofrussia.com
Powerful Typhoon Wipha is headed for Fukushima. enenews.com
An Areva-led consortium recently won a $33 million contract to help manage of one Europe’s largest nuclear research projects. nuclearstreet.com
nuclearstreet.com
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Geiger Readings for October 15, 2013
Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 73 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 88 nanosieverts per hour
Romaine lettuce from Top Foods = 95 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 132 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 106 nanosieverts per hour
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Nuclear Reactors 66 – Nuclear Breeder Reactors 7 – History of US Breeder Reactors 3
My recent posts have been about breeder reactors which generate more fissile material than they consume. There is renewed interest in breeder reactors for the production of nuclear fuel and the destruction of nuclear waste. Today will the second part of my review of the history of breeder reactors in the United States.
Yesterday, I talked about the experimental breeder reactors developed during the 1950s and early 1960s in the US. They had serious problems and reduced US enthusiasm for breeder reactors.
In 1956, ground was broken at a site about thirty miles from Detroit, Michigan on the shores of Lake Erie for the most ambitious US breeder reactor up to that time. It was dubbed the Enrico Fermi Breeder Reactor Project and thirty four companies were involved in the project under the umbrella of the Power Reactor Development Corporation. (PRDC) The Fermi 1 reactor was a sodium cooled reactor fueled with highly enriched uranium. It was a two loop design with the sodium that cooled the core transferring its heat to a secondary sodium cooling system. It began operating in 1963. In late 1966, there was a partial core meltdown caused by a blockage of the sodium flow through the core. Two rods melted down but no radiation was released into the environment. It took four years to repair the reactor and it was put back into operation in 1970. It generated a small fraction of its rated power output in 1971 and the PRDC decided that it was not a practical source of electrical power. The reactor was turned off in 1972 and subsequently decommissioned.
All the early fast breeder used metal fuels. In the 1960s, research began on fast breeder reactor designs that would be fueled with ceramic pellets containing a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide. The Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor was built near Strickler, Arkansas to test MOX fuel in breeder reactors. It started operation in 1969 and was shut down in 1972 after verifying that MOX had advantages over metal fuel.
Despite all these problems, the Atomic Energy Commission focused on developing commercial fast breeder reactors for generating electricity during the 1960s. They poured money and manpower into research and promotion of fast breeder reactors. They hoped that government subsidies would entice utilities to adopt the breeder reactors. In 1968, the AEC issued a 10 volume program plan for liquid metal fast breeder reactors. The development of LMFBRs became a national priority. The AEC hoped to see the development of a robust commercial LMFBR industry in the US starting in 1984. The AEC produced some projections of decreasing costs for fast breeder reactors and increasing profitability for these new reactors. Unfortunately, these projections turned out to be far too optimistic. In the next article in this series, we will deal with the rise and fall of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor which was to be a demonstration of the potential of the AEC LMFBRs.
Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor:
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Geiger Readings for October 14, 2013
Ambient office = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 76 nanosieverts per hour
Bartlett pear from Top Foods = 76 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 77 nanosieverts per hour
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Radiation News Roundup October 13, 2013
2 years and 7 months later It is still not known exactly what happened in Fukushima’s Unit 2 reactor on March 11, 2013. fukushima-diary.com
Nearly half of Fukushima’s 350 contaminated water tanks can’t even last for 5 years. fukushima-diary.com
Britain ‘extremely close’ to nuclear plant deal with France’s EDF to build first new nuclear plant since 1995. uk.reuters.com
Threat to Britain’s nuclear program as Treasury blocks new reactors at Sellafield. thetimes.co.uk
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Geiger Readings for October 13, 2013
Ambient office = 96 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 109 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 76 nanosieverts per hour
Iceberg lettuce from Top Foods = 76 nanosieverts per hour
Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour
Filtered water = 77 nanosieverts per hour
