Conceptual Design of Transmutation, Breeder and Sustainable Fast Reactors
Fast transmutation, or "advanced burner", reactors could be employed to fission the long-lived transuranics that remain in spent nuclear fuel discharged from LWRs. By separating these transuranics and fabricating them into fuel that can be repeatedly recycled in fast burner reactors to fission all the transuranics, leaving only the longer-lived fission products and trace quantities of transuranics that must be deposited in long-term geological high-level waste repositories. This will greatly reduce the need for geological repository capacity.
Fast "breeder" reactors could be employed to produce fissionable 239Pu fuel for LWRs by the neutron transmutation of 238U, thus enabling a fuller utilization of the potential energy content in uranium. Alternatively, fast "sustainer" reactors that basically produced their own fuel by transmuting 238U into plutonium and fissioning it and the higher transuranics could both more fully utilize the uranium fuel resource and reduce the need for geological repository capacity.
PUBLICATIONS
W. M. Stacey, J. Mandrekas, E. A. Hoffman and NRE Design Class, "A Fusion Transmutation of Waste Reactor", Fusion Sci. Technol. 41, 116 (2001).
W. M. Stacey, D. Tedder, J. Lackey, J. Mandrekas and NRE Design Class, "A Sub-Critical, Gas-Cooled Fast Transmutation Reactor (GCFTR) with a Fusion Neutron Source" , Nucl. Technol., 150, 162 (2005).
W. M. Stacey, D. Tedder, J. Lackey, and NRE Design Class, "A Sub-Critical, He-Cooled Fast Reactor for the Transmutation of Spent Nuclear Fuel" , Nucl. Technol, 156, 9 (2006).
W. M. Stacey, D. W. Tedder, R. W. Johnson, Z. W. Friis, H. K. Park and NRE Design Class., "Advances in the Subcritical, Gas-Cooled Fast Transmutation Reactor Concept" , Nucl. Technol. 159, 72 (2007).
W. M. Stacey, W. Van Rooijen and NRE Design Class, "A TRU-Zr Metal Fuel, Sodium Cooled, Fast, Subcritical Advanced Burner Reactor" , Nucl. Technol. 162, 53 (2008).