Abstract
Recently, the concept of actinide burning instead of a once-through fuel cycle for disposing spent nuclear fuel seems to get much more attention. A new method of burning high-level transuranic (TRU) waste combined with Thorium–Uranium (Th–U) fuel in the subcritical reactors driven by external fusion neutron sources is proposed in this paper. The thorium-based TRU fuel burns all of the long-lived actinides via a hard neutron spectrum while outputting power. A one-dimensional model of the reactor concept was built by means of the ONESN_BURN code with new data libraries. The numerical results included actinide radioactivity, biological hazard potential, and much higher burnup rate of high-level transuranic waste. The comparison of the fusion–fission reactor with the thermal reactor shows that the harder neutron spectrum is more efficient than the soft. The Th–U cycle produces less TRU, less radiotoxicity and fewer long-lived actinides. The Th–U cycle provides breeding of [Formula: see text]U with a long operation time (>20 years), hence significantly reducing the reactivity swing while improving safety and burnup.
Highlights
The world’s nuclear electric capacity of nearly 380 gigawatts-electric (GWe) produces spent nuclear fuel roughly amounting to 8000 tonnes of heavy metal per year
We propose a new concept of actinide burning with a thorium–uranium (Th–U) cycle with an external fusion neutron source (14.1 MeV)
We propose a concept of transuranic elements (TRU) burning with the Th–U cycle by the fusion–fission reactor (FFR)
Summary
The concept of actinide burning instead of a once-through fuel cycle for disposing spent nuclear fuel seems to get much more attention. A new method of burning high-level transuranic (TRU) waste combined with Thorium–Uranium (Th–U) fuel in the subcritical reactors driven by external fusion neutron sources is proposed in this paper. The thorium-based TRU fuel burns all of the long-lived actinides via a hard neutron spectrum while outputting power. The numerical results included actinide radioactivity, biological hazard potential, and much higher burnup rate of high-level transuranic waste. The Th–U cycle produces less TRU, less radiotoxicity and fewer long-lived actinides. The Th–U cycle provides breeding of 233U with a long operation time (>20 years), significantly reducing the reactivity swing while improving safety and burnup.
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