Nuclear waste study: Fast breeder reaction will not solve waste storage problem

[kristopher]

Nuclear waste study: Fast breeder reaction will not solve waste storage problem

Princeton, N.J., February 17, 2010 — According to a study by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, fast breeder reactors may not the answer to the problem of long term storage for nuclear waste.

The IPFM report concludes that the problems with fast breeder reactors make it hard to dispute that such reactors are expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions and difficult and time-consuming to repair.

Plagued by high costs, often multi-year downtime for repairs (including a 15-year reactor restart delay in Japan), multiple safety problems (among them often catastrophic sodium fires triggered simply by contact with oxygen) and unresolved proliferation risks, fast breeder reactors already have been the focus of more than $50 billion in development spending, including more than $10 billion each by the U.S., Japan and Russia.

As the IPFM report notes: "Yet none of these efforts has produced a reactor that is anywhere near economically competitive with light-water reactors After six decades and the expenditure of the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars, the promise of breeder reactors remains largely unfulfilled and efforts to commercialize them have been steadily cut back in most countries."

Today, with increased attention being paid both to so-called "Generation IV" reactors...

Fairly long article:
http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/7368041620/articles/electric-light-power/generation/nuclear/2010/02/Nuclear_waste_study__Fast_breeder_reaction_will_not_solve_waste_storage_problem.html

This is from the electric industry mag 'Electric Light & Power, POWERGRID International, and Utility Products'

[Statistical]

1. "anywhere near economically competitive with light-water reactors"

"Yet none of these efforts has produced a reactor that is anywhere near economically competitive with light-water reactors"

Guess what explains why we are building light-water reactors.

"Now, I know it's been long assumed that those who champion the environment are opposed to nuclear power. But the fact is, even though we've not broken ground on a new power plant -- new nuclear plant in 30 years, nuclear energy remains our largest source of fuel that produces no carbon emissions. To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we'll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It's that simple. This one plant, for example, will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared to a similar coal plant. That's like taking 3.5 million cars off the road." - President Obama

[kristopher]

4. The IPFM report also found:

* The rationale for breeder reactors is no longer sound.

The rationale for pursuing breeder reactors was based on the following key assumptions: 1. Uranium is scarce and high-grade deposits would quickly become depleted if fission power were deployed on a large scale; 2. Breeder reactors would quickly become economically competitive with the light-water reactors that dominate nuclear power today; 3. Breeder reactors could be as safe and reliable as light-water reactors; and, 4. The proliferation risks posed by breeders and their 'closed' fuel cycle, in which plutonium would be recycled, could be managed. Each of these assumptions has proven to be wrong."


* Significant safety issues are unresolved.
Sodium's major disadvantage is that it reacts violently with water and burns if exposed to air. The steam generators, in which molten-sodium and high-pressure water are separated by thin metal, have proved to be one of the most troublesome features of breeder reactors. Any leak results in a reaction that can rupture the tubes and lead to a major sodium-water fire.


* Downtime makes the breeder reactor unreliable.
A large fraction of sodium-cooled demonstration reactors have been shut down most of the time that they should have been generating electric power. A significant part of the problem has been the difficulty of maintaining and repairing the reactor hardware that is immersed in sodium.

The requirement to keep air from coming into contact with sodium makes refueling and repairs inside the reactor vessel more complicated and lengthy than for water-cooled reactors. During repairs, the fuel has to be removed, the sodium drained and the entire system flushed carefully to remove residual sodium without causing an explosion. Such preparations can take months or years.


* Proliferation risks have not been addressed.
All reactors produce plutonium in their fuel but breeder reactors require plutonium recycle, the separation of plutonium from the ferociously radioactive fission products in the spent fuel. This makes the plutonium more accessible to would-be nuclear-weapon makers.

Breeder reactors —and separation of plutonium from the spent fuel of ordinary reactors to provide startup fuel for breeder reactors — therefore create proliferation problems. This fact became dramatically clear in 1974, when India used the first plutonium separated for its breeder reactor program to make a 'peaceful nuclear explosion.'


* Most breeder reactors are being shut down.
Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States have abandoned their breeder reactor development programs. Despite the arguments by France's nuclear conglomerate Areva, that fast-neutron reactors will ultimately fission all the plutonium building up in France's light-water reactor spent fuel, France's only operating fast-neutron reactor, Phénix, was disconnected from the grid in March 2009 and scheduled for permanent shutdown by the end of that year. The Superphénix, the world's first commercial-sized breeder reactor, was abandoned in 1998 and is being decommissioned. There is no follow-on breeder reactor planned in France for at least a decade.

[RC]

2. Fast breeder reactors aren't suppose to relieve the storage problem,

they are designed to relieve the shortage of uranium.
All a breeder reactor does is generates new fissile material at a greater rate than it consumes. That's it main purpose.

[kristopher]

3. And it's a failure.

[Maru Kitteh]

5. HEY! The Duggars are trying AS HARD AS THEY CAN!