Feasibility Study of Supercritical Light Water Cooled Fast Reactors for Actinide Burning and Electric Power Production, Progress Report for Work Through September 2002, 4th Quarterly Report

Abstract

The use of light water at supercritical pressures as the coolant in a nuclear reactor offers the potential for considerable plant simplification and consequent capital and O&M cost reduction compared with current light water reactor (LWR) designs. Also, given the thermodynamic conditions of the coolant at the core outlet (i.e. temperature and pressure beyond the water critical point), very high thermal efficiencies of the power conversion cycle are possible (i.e. up to about 45%). Because no change of phase occurs in the core, the need for steam separators and dryers as well as for BWR-type re-circulation pumps is eliminated, which, for a given reactor power, results in a substantially shorter reactor vessel and smaller containment building than the current BWRs. Furthermore, in a direct cycle the steam generators are not needed. If no additional moderator is added to the fuel rod lattice, it is possible to attain fast neutron energy spectrum conditions in a supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR). This type of core can make use of either fertile or fertile-free fuel and retain a hard spectrum to effectively burn plutonium and minor actinides from LWR spent fuel while efficiently generating electricity. One can also add moderation and design a thermal spectrum SCWR. The Generation IV Roadmap effort has identified the thermal spectrum SCWR (followed by the fast spectrum SCWR) as one of the advanced concepts that should be developed for future use. Therefore, the work in this NERI project is addressing both types of SCWRs.