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Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
He Liaoyuan, Xia Shaopeng, Chen Jingen, Liu Guimin, Wu Jianhui, Zou Yang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 195 | Number 2 | February 2021 | Pages 185-202
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1798728
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The molten chloride salt fast reactor (MCFR) with Th-U fuel cycle is attracting more and more attention because of its excellent performance, such as high solubility of actinides, superior breeding capacity, low waste production, and high inherent safety. First of all, the breeding capability of an MCFR at equilibrium state was optimized by an in-house automated optimization program. Based on an optimized MCFR, an investigation of Th-U cycle performance was performed. Due to the lack of available 233U in nature, transuranium (TRU), low-enriched uranium (LEU), and Pu were employed as the startup fissile materials, and two different transition scenarios, a breeding and burning (B&B) scenario and a pre-breeding and burning (PBB) scenario were studied. The results show that the breeding performance in an MCFR is attractive and that the Th-U fuel transition can be achieved smoothly by using LEU, Pu, or TRU as startup fissile materials. In the B&B scenario, the average net 233U production rate in the LEU-started, TRU-started, and Pu-started modes during 200-year operation is 374, 321, and 323 kg/a, respectively, at the reprocessing rate of 200 L/day. While in the PB&B scenario the average annual 233U production is about 570 kg for all startup cases at a reprocessing rate of 40 L/day, and the corresponding doubling time is about 9.6 years. Besides, the values of the fuel Doppler coefficient and density coefficient are negative, and the total temperature coefficient of reactivity in all scenarios is below −8 pcm/K. In addition, the value of radiotoxicity of the Th-U cycle in an MCFR is lower than that in other molten salt reactors like the molten-salt breeder reactor and the molten fluoride salt reactor due to the lower buildup of fission products and TRU under its hard spectrum.
