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Front-end nuclear fuel supply cooperation: Turning allied interdependence into strategic advantage
The global nuclear revival, which is fueled by unprecedented demand for firm, affordable, dispatchable power for artificial intelligence and data center build-out, energy security imperatives, and climate commitments, has exposed a structural reality of the Western fuel cycle: No single allied nation currently possesses the full suite of front-end capabilities. From mining through conversion, enrichment, fabrication, and the emerging deconversion and metallization steps required for reactor fuels, capability is distributed across Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (collectively, the “Sapporo Five”), as well as a small group of close partners.
M. Taube
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 61 | Number 2 | October 1976 | Pages 212-221
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A27354
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fission products 90Sr and 137Cs produced by fission reactors of 30 GW(th) can be transmutated into stable nuclides by neutron irradiation with a thermal flux of 2 × 1016 n cm−2 s−1. The rates of transmutation are 15 and 3.3 times greater, respectively, than that of spontaneous beta decay. The transmutation would take place in a central thermalized region of a high-flux fast burner reactor of 7 GW(th). In the case where the power reactors of 23 GW(th) are breeders with a high breeding gain of G = 0.38, the total system, inclusive of the high-flux burner, remains a breeding system, with Gtotal = 0.09. Details of the neutronics calculations and simplified thermohydraulics are given. The high-flux burner is fueled with a molten salt of chlorides of plutonium and sodium with a power density of 10 kW cm−3. The “self-liquidation” of such a system is discussed.