ANS American Nuclear Society
ANS
ANS HomeAboutMembersJoinContactSearch
Public Information
News and Events

Position Statements

Nuclear Matters

Resources
Radiation Dose Chart

Brochures

more >>

Teachers and Students
Teacher Workshops

Ask an Expert

Nuclear Careers

Classroom Posters

more >>

Media
News Releases

News Updates for Journalists

more >>

Nuclear Professionals
Communication Toolkit

Speakers Bureau

Slide Library

more >>
ANS > Public Information > News and Events
Fast Flux Test Facility - Unique Capabilities and Vital Missions

Views of the American Nuclear Society
July 2001

FFTF is Unique

FFTF is unique among our test reactors in its size, flexibility in accommodating a wide variety of instrumented test assemblies, high neutron flux, high temperatures for testing, and accessibility for experiment control and measurement instrumentation. In fact, FFTF's instrumentation capability is unmatched by any other reactor of its kind in the world. The facility was built to the highest design and construction standards. Many of the quality assurance concepts used today in the commercial nuclear power industry were applied at FFTF.

FFTF provides the United States with technical capabilities not available abroad, capabilities that will be sought out by other countries. In fact, the foreign fast reactor capabilities that do exist are rapidly diminishing. The last French fast reactor is to be shut down in a few years, the Monju reactor in Japan has an uncertain future, and one reactor in Russia may well be the only large fast reactor other than FFTF available.

In addition, FFTF's capability of producing essentially any neutron spectra desired makes it the preferred, and some cases the only, tool for materials research that can support many of the new Generation IV power reactor design concepts.


What FFTF Can Do

In the energy area, FFTF can provide important support, such as:
  • Superior accelerated fast flux damage testing of ceramics and innovative cladding materials.
  • Feasibility testing of fuels studied as part of the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI).
  • Testing of some of the DOE Generation IV reactor concepts and direct-energy conversion systems (the lack of FFTF may cause abandonment of some of these promising concepts).
  • Demonstration of proliferation-resistant recycling of spent nuclear fuel.
Outside the energy area, FFTF has several additional roles. For example, it can offer:
  • High-temperature irradiation tests in support of nuclear space missions and nuclear fusion materials requirements.
  • Production of radioisotopes for medical purposes, especially cancer therapy.
  • Candidate fuel performance tests and materials testing for transmutation systems (accelerator- and reactor-based).
  • Production of radioactive materials needed to demonstrate experimentally the practicality and economics of separations technology proposed for partitioning and transmutation of high level nuclear "waste."


Other Considerations

The DOE EIS issued last year appears to be incorrect in concluding that projected needs for U.S. medical and other, high atomic weight, isotopes can be met by other U.S. test reactors without interfering with other missions. In this connection, please consider the following:
  • Most of the test holes at the two other U.S. test reactors would be totally occupied in providing one key isotope for the DOE-estimated needs for the space program.
  • Projected terrestrial production needs of the same key isotope appear not to have been considered.
  • The development and production of existing and new medical isotopes are almost certainly curtailed because of a lack of available production facilities.
  • Economical production of isotopes in FFTF will allow multipurpose missions at other facilities.
Although beyond the scope of the American Nuclear Society review, it is well known that FFTF has the backup capability to make significant contributions to the national security program by the production of tritium.


Preserving America's Nuclear Energy Options

The FFTF is important for preserving various nationally strategic nuclear energy options. For example,
  • Without a facility such as FFTF, some concepts for new nuclear power generation cannot be brought to fruition.
  • The closure of some older test reactor facilities and the aging and closure plans for others abroad have substantially increased the importance of FFTF.
  • FFTF would provide the ability to develop technology and perform fuel testing to preserve options for recycling commercial reactor fuel after a few decades (and reduce the volume of high-level "waste"), and also support synergistic transmutation concepts.
To construct a facility in the future with the required research and development capabilities would cost well over $2 billion - many times the restart costs for FFTF.

<< Return
Questions or comments about the American Nuclear Society web site?  Contact the ANS Webmaster.