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The Aec’s Civilian Power Reactor Program
Published in Irvin C. Bupp, Priorities in Nuclear Technology, 2019
The official justification for the priority assigned to the program has remained quite consistent since the policy changes of the mid-1960’s. Breeder reactors are being developed because they provide the most efficient means of exploiting the energy available in uranium; they minimize the quantity of uranium consumed per unit of electricity generated, and hold promise of yielding potential fuel costs of less than one mill per kilowatt-hour (7–8 mills is now common). They will (in sharp contrast to current reactor technology) permit very high utilization (perhaps 90 per cent) of the uranium processed from ore, thereby extending known energy reserves by several orders of magnitude; and finally they will provide a market for the plutonium produced from the water reactors.51
Uranium Enrichment, Nuclear Fuels, and Fuel Cycles
Published in Robert E. Masterson, Nuclear Engineering Fundamentals, 2017
As we mentioned earlier in the chapter, there are two fuel cycles that are commonly used in breeder reactors today. We would like to present an overview of each of these fuel cycles and then discuss the mechanics of how they can be implemented. Basically, the role of a breeder reactor is to take a fertile material that cannot be used as a nuclear fuel by itself (such as Thorium-232 or Uranium-238) and turn it into a fissile material that can be easily used as a nuclear fuel. This is done by allowing the Th-232 or the U-238 atoms to absorb an additional neutron and “breed” more U-233 or Pu-239 in the process. The U-233 or the Pu-239 that is produced in this way can be used to continue the breeding process over and over again. The active components of nuclear fuel rods are called fissile materials and the most common examples of them are U-233, U-235, Pu-239, and Pu-241. The passive components of nuclear fuel rods (which can be used to create fissile materials) are known as fertile materials, and the most common examples of them are Th-232 and U-238. A breeder reactor converts fertile materials into fissile ones, and the goal of this process is to produce more fissile material than is consumed. This allows scarce nuclear resources to be effectively reused.
Nonrenewable Energy Sources
Published in John C. Ayers, Sustainability, 2017
One possible solution to the SNF problem is to use breeder reactors that reprocess the fuel, which is 60 times more efficient than the once-through reactors we currently use. Recycling the waste sounds like a good choice from an environmental standpoint, as it would reduce how much SNF must be disposed of and the required amount of environmentally harmful uranium mining. However, breeder reactors are very expensive and difficult to operate, and since none of the handful of breeder reactors provided affordable power, most have been shut down (Daniel 2012). Also, breeder reactors produce large amounts of plutonium, which raises risks associated with waste disposal and proliferation of material that can be used to make atomic bombs.
Molybdenum-99 from Molten Salt Reactor as a Source of Technetium-99m for Nuclear Medicine: Past, Current, and Future of Molybdenum-99
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2023
Jisue Moon, Kristian Myhre, Hunter Andrews, Joanna McFarlane
During the first MSRE at ORNL in the 1960s, it was recognized that the MSR would be ideal for the thermal breeding of uranium from thorium.40 Breeding reactors generate more fissile materials than they consume. In other words, the neutron economy in the breeder reactor is high enough to create more fissile fuel than it uses by the irradiation of a fertile material such as 238U or 232Th. Because of the breeding aspect, neutron economy was considered to be a key factor, and 7LiF-BeF2 (FLiBe), with 5% ZrF4 as an oxygen getter, was selected as the fuel carrier because of the very low neutron capture cross section of 7Li ( = 0.045 barns) and Be ( = 0.0088 barns). Due to the low neutron capture cross section in the thermal spectrum, so far FLiBe is the prime carrier salt under consideration. Lithium in natural abundance possesses about 7.6% 6Li, and this has to be removed due to its high parasitic neutron capture cross section ( = 940 barns) and tritium formation.