Download or read book Safeguards Operations in the Integral Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argonne National Laboratory is currently demonstrating the fuel cycle for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), an advanced reactor concept that takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety, operation, fuel-cycle economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. The IFR fuel cycle employs a pyrometallurgical process using molten salts and liquid metals to recover actinides from spent fuel. The safeguards aspects of the fuel cycle demonstration must be approved by the United States Department of Energy, but a further goal of the program is to develop a safeguards system that could gain acceptance from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency. This fuel cycle is described with emphasis on aspects that differ from aqueous reprocessing and on its improved safeguardability due to decreased attractiveness and diversion potential of all process streams, including the fuel product.
Download or read book Status of the Integral Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Demonstration and Waste Management Practices written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past few years, Argonne National Laboratory has been preparing for the demonstration of the fuel cycle for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), an advanced reactor concept that takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety and operations, fuel-cycle economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. The IFR fuel cycle, which will be demonstrated at Argonne-West in Idaho, employs a pyrometallurgical process using molten salts and liquid metals to recover actinides from spent fuel. The required facility modifications and process equipment for the demonstration are nearing completion. Their status and the results from initial fuel fabrication work, including the waste management aspects, are presented. Additionally, estimated compositions of the various process waste streams have been made, and characterization and treatment methods are being developed. The status of advanced waste processing equipment being designed and fabricated is described.
Download or read book Simulated First Operating Campaign for the Integral Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Demonstration written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report discusses the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) which is an innovative liquid-metal-cooled reactor concept that is being developed by Argonne National Laboratory. It takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid-metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety, operation, fuel cycle-economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. Over the next few years, the IFR fuel cycle will be demonstrated at Argonne-West in Idaho. Spent fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) win be processed in its associated Fuel Cycle Facility (FCF) using a pyrochemical method that employs molten salts and liquid metals in an electrorefining operation. As part of the preparation for the fuel cycle demonstration, a computer code, PYRO, was developed at Argonne to model the electrorefining operation using thermodynamic and empirical data. This code has been used extensively to evaluate various operating strategies for the fuel cycle demonstration. The modeled results from the first operating campaign are presented. This campaign is capable of processing more than enough material to refuel completely the EBR-II core.
Download or read book Transuranic Material Recovery in the Integral Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Demonstration written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integral Fast Reactor is an innovative liquid metal reactor concept that is being developed by Argonne National Laboratory. It takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety, operation, fuel cycle economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. The plans for demonstrating the IFR fuel cycle, including its waste processing options, by processing irradiated fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II fuel in its associated Fuel Cycle Facility have been developed for the first refining series. This series has been designed to provide the data needed for the further development of the IFR program. An important piece of the data needed is the recovery of TRU material during the reprocessing and waste operations.
Download or read book Bericht ber die Planungen im grenznahen Raum written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Incorporation of Excess Weapons Material Into the IFR Fuel Cycle written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) provides both a diversion resistant closed fuel cycle for commercial power generation and a means of addressing safeguards concerns related to excess nuclear weapons material. Little head-end processing and handling of dismantled warhead materials is required to convert excess weapons plutonium (Pu) to IFR fuel and a modest degree of proliferation protection is available immediately by alloying weapons Pu to an IFR fuel composition. Denaturing similar to that of spent fuel is obtained by short cycle (e.g. 45 day) use in an IFR reactor, by mixing which IFR recycle fuel, or by alloying with other spent fuel constituents. Any of these permanent denaturings could be implemented as soon as an operating IFR and/or an IFR recycle capability of reasonable scale is available. The initial Pu charge generated from weapons excess Pu can then be used as a permanent denatured catalyst, enabling the IFR to efficiently and economically generate power with only a natural or depleted uranium feed. The Pu is thereafter permanently safeguarded until consumed, with essentially none going to a waste repository.
Download or read book Safeguards Techniques and Equipment written by International Atomic Energy Agency and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1990s saw significant developments in the global non-proliferation landscape, resulting in a new period of safeguards development. The current publication, which is the second revision and update of IAEA/NVS/1, is intended to give a full and balanced description of the safeguards techniques and equipment used for nuclear material accountancy, containment and surveillance measures, environmental sampling, and data security. New features include a section on new and novel technologies. As new verification measures continue to be developed, the material in this book will be reviewed periodically and updated versions issued.
Download or read book Liquid Metal Reactors written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Energy and Power and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Department of Energy s Actinide Recycle and Liquid Metal Reactor Programs written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Methodology for Safeguards Evaluation and Its Application to Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication written by Mohammad Ali Azarfar and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study focuses on the development of a methodology to evaluate safeguardability of various processes in the nuclear fuel cycle. National and international implementation of safeguards systems has been investigated. It was concluded that proliferation is purely a political question that, hopefully, can be prevented by international norms and diplomacy; it does not depend on technical differences between the different processes. On the other hand, the prevention of diversion does depend on technical barriers implemented in nuclear facilities. Therefore, different processes with different technical fixes might have varying degrees of resistivity against diversion. Safeguardability of a process can not be evaluated in absolute terms; rather it can be compared with and ranked against another process. In addition, processes by themselves can not be compared; only plants embodying processes can be compared. This is because processes are not safeguardable but plants incorporating them are. A methodology was developed which compares and ranks various processes in the nuclear fuel cycle. It estimates the weights of different safeguard characteristics of a nuclear facility and calculates a dimensionless number --safeguards index-- for each process under evaluation. By comparing these safeguards indices, one is able to rank processes against each other. As a case study, comparison of two fast reactor fuel fabrication processes, pelletization and spherepac, were selected. At present, no fast reactor fuel fabrication facility exists on a commercial scale. Hence, two fuel fabrication facilities, each incorporating one process, were designed, in enough detail to make the safeguards comparison possible. Safeguards indices were calculated for these two plants based on the information derived from their designs. The result revealed that the spherepac process is higher in rank relative to the pellet process; the spherepac process is simpler to safeguard relative to the pellet process. Derivation of some of the data used in calculation of safeguards indices was based partly upon subjective judgment. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to test the dependency of the result on subjective judgment. It was concluded that as long as the probability estimation and numerical value assignments remain in a reasonable range, the method is relatively insensitive to subjective judgment.
Download or read book Behavior of 241Am in Fast Reactor Systems a Safeguards Perspective written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advanced fuel-cycle developments around the world currently under development are exploring the possibility of disposing of 241Am from spent fuel recycle processes by burning this material in fast reactors. For safeguards practitioners, this approach could potentially complicate both fresh- and spent-fuel safeguards measurements. The increased ([alpha], n) production in oxide fuels from the 241Am increases the uncertainty in coincidence assay of Pu in MOX assemblies and will require additional information to make use of totals-based neutron assay of these assemblies. We have studied the behavior of 241Am-bearing MOX fuel in the fast reactor system and the effect on neutron and gamma-ray source-terms for safeguards measurements. In this paper, we will present the results of simulations of the behavior of 241Am in a fast breeder reactor system. Because of the increased use of MOX fuel in thermal reactors and advances in fuel-cycle designs aimed at americium disposal in fast reactors, we have undertaken a brief study of the behavior of americium in these systems to better understand the safeguards impacts of these new approaches. In this paper we will examine the behavior of 241Am in a variety of nuclear systems to provide insight into the safeguards implications of proposed Am disposition schemes.
Download or read book Proliferation Resistance Assessment of the Integral Fast Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept includes a sodium-cooled fast reactor collocated with an integrated pyroprocess fuel recycling facility. The pyrochemical processes and the inert atmosphere of the heavily shielded fuel cycle facility provide inherent proliferation-resistant features for this advanced technology. The reactor can be designed to operate with a number of different conversion factors, so that it could be used for excess plutonium consumption or as a breeder if needed for rapid expansion of energy supply. The system contains a large quantity of plutonium and minor actinides, which at all times remain in extremely hostile environments and in chemical and physical forms that would require additional processing to extract weapons-suitable material. The aqueous processing equipment and facilities to accomplish such separation would not be available on site. Transportation would not be required in the reference deployment scenario. Nevertheless, the proliferation-resistance of some parts of the system could be considerably strengthened by advanced safeguards technologies. In spite of its inherent features, international deployment of the system would probably be limited to stable countries with a strong existing nuclear infrastructure.
Download or read book Proliferation Resistance of the Fuel Cycle for the Integral Fast Reactor written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argonne National Laboratory has developed an electrorefining pyrochemical process for recovery and recycle of metal fuel discharged from the Integral Fast Reactor (FR). This inherently low decontamination process has an overall decontamination factor of only about 100 for the plutonium metal product. As a result, all of the fuel cycle operations must be conducted in heavily shielded cells containing a high-purity argon atmosphere. The FR fuel cycle possesses high resistance to clandestine diversion or overt, state- supported removal of plutonium for nuclear weapons production because of two main factors: the highly radioactive product, which is also contaminated with heat- and neutron-producing isotopes of plutonium and other actinide elements, and the difficulty of removing material from the FR facility through the limited number of cell transfer locks without detection.
Download or read book Assess How Changes in Fuel Cycle Operation Impact Safeguards written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report two research topics of interest to Concepts and Approaches are investigated. The motivation of joining them into one project is that both require (1) the simulation of fuel irradiation in a reactor and (2) the transport of gamma and neutron irradiation from the fuel to safeguards detectors. In the next two subsections the merits of each of the two safeguards applications are further introduced. Given the cumulative impact of the enhancements listed above, it is not surprising that both fuel assembly design and fuel assembly irradiation optimization have improved over the past 50+ years. The purpose of the research summarized in this sub-section is to investigate what, if any, consequence this evolution in reactor operation might have for nuclear safeguards. It is anticipated that the burnup and isotopics of the spent fuel should exhibit less variation over the decades as reactor operators irradiate each assembly to the optimum amount. In contrast, older spent fuel is anticipated to vary more in burnup and resulting isotopics for a given initial enrichment. Continuing with this thesis, modern fuel should be more uniform in composition, and thus, measured safeguards results should be easier to interpret than results from older spent fuel. With spent fuel ponds filling up, interim and long-term storage of spent fuel will need to be addressed. Additionally after long periods of storage, spent fuel is no longer self-protecting and as such the IAEA will categorize it as more attractive; in approximately 20 years many of the assemblies from early commercial cores will no longer be considered self-protecting. This study will assess how more recent changes in the reactor operation could impact the interpretation of safeguards measurements.
Download or read book Plentiful Energy written by Charles E. Till and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is a fast reactor system developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the decade 1984 to 1994. The IFR project developed the technology for a complete system; the reactor, the entire fuel cycle and the waste management technologies were all included in the development program. The reactor concept had important features and characteristics that were completely new and fuel cycle and waste management technologies that were entirely new developments. The reactor is a "fast" reactor - that is, the chain reaction is maintained by "fast" neutrons with high energy - which produces its own fuel. The IFR reactor and associated fuel cycle is a closed system. Electrical power is generated, new fissile fuel is produced to replace the fuel burned, its used fuel is processed for recycling by pyroprocessing - a new development - and waste is put in final form for disposal. All this is done on one self-sufficient site.The scale and duration of the project and its funding made it the largest nuclear energy R and D program of its day. Its purpose was the development of a long term massive new energy source, capable of meeting the nation's electrical energy needs in any amount, and for as long as it is needed, forever, if necessary. Safety, non-proliferation and waste toxicity properties were improved as well, these three the characteristics most commonly cited in opposition to nuclear power.Development proceeded from success to success. Most of the development had been done when the program was abruptly cancelled by the newly elected Clinton Administration. In his 1994 State of the Union address the president stated that "unnecessary programs in advanced reactor development will be terminated." The IFR was that program.This book gives the real story of the IFR, written by the two nuclear scientists who were most deeply involved in its conception, the development of its R and D program, and its management.Between the scientific and engineering papers and reports, and books on the IFR, and the non-technical and often impassioned dialogue that continues to this day on fast reactor technology, we felt there is room for a volume that, while accurate technically, is written in a manner accessible to the non-specialist and even to the non-technical reader who simply wants to know what this technology is.
Download or read book Advanced Safeguards Approaches for New Fast Reactors written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third report in the series reviews possible safeguards approaches for new fast reactors in general, and the ABR in particular. Fast-neutron spectrum reactors have been used since the early 1960s on an experimental and developmental level, generally with fertile blanket fuels to?breed? nuclear fuel such as plutonium. Whether the reactor is designed to breed plutonium, or transmute and?burn? actinides depends mainly on the design of the reactor neutron reflector and the whether the blanket fuel is?fertile? or suitable for transmutation. However, the safeguards issues are very similar, since they pertain mainly to the receipt, shipment and storage of fresh and spent plutonium and actinide-bearing?TRU?-fuel. For these reasons, the design of existing fast reactors and details concerning how they have been safeguarded were studied in developing advanced safeguards approaches for the new fast reactors. In this regard, the design of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II?EBR-II? at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) was of interest, because it was designed as a collocated fast reactor with a pyrometallurgical reprocessing and fuel fabrication line - a design option being considered for the ABR. Similarly, the design of the Fast Flux Facility (FFTF) on the Hanford Site was studied, because it was a successful prototype fast reactor that ran for two decades to evaluate fuels and the design for commercial-scale fast reactors.
Download or read book Safeguards and Security Integration for Fuel Cycle Facilities written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
