Economic analysis of hydride fueled BWR

Abstract

The economic implications of designing BWR cores with hydride fuels instead of conventional oxide fuels are analyzed. The economic analysis methodology adopted is based on the lifetime levelized cost of electricity (COE). Bracketing values (1970 and 3010 $/kWe) are used for the overnight construction costs and for the power scaling factors (0.4 and 0.8) that correlate between a change in the capital cost to a change in the power level. It is concluded that a newly constructed BWR reactor could substantially benefit from the use of 10 × 10 hydride fuel bundles instead of 10 × 10 oxide fuel bundles design presently in use. The cost saving would depend on the core pressure drop constraint that can be implemented in newly constructed BWRs – it is between 2% and 3% for a core pressure drop constraint as of the reference BWR, between 9% and 15% for a 50% higher core pressure drop, and between 12% and 21% higher for close to 100% core pressure. The attainable cost reduction was found insensitive to the specific construction cost but strongly dependent on the power scaling factor. The cost advantage of hydride fuelled cores as compared to that of the oxide reference core depends only weakly on the uranium and SWU prices, on the “per volume base” fabrication cost of hydride fuels, and on the discount rate used. To be economically competitive, the uranium enrichment required for the hydride fuelled core needs to be around 10%.