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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
J. Bogen, K.-H. Schüller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 38 | Number 1 | April 1978 | Pages 104-112
Technical Paper | Low-Temperature Nuclear Heat / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT78-A16162
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear power plants are normally designed for operation with condensing turbines for pure electricity production. The rational use of primary energy demands the combined production of electricity and low-temperature heat, especially for regions with high population densities. The choice of the plant layout for combined generation of electricity and heat from nuclear power stations depends on the requirements of the electrical and district heating grids, on technological criteria of the process, as well as on economic criteria. A 3782 MJ/s pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear steam supply system is used as a basis for the combined production of electricity and heat produced by extracting steam from the low pressure turbines of the turbo-generator and by installing a separate heating turbine. There are no important technical changes necessary in a PWR plant, designed for electricity generation, when changing to the combined generation of electricity and heat. Since the additional equipment for district heating production is designed in detail, the additional plant costs can be estimated. The result shows that, for a heating capacity range of 349 to 1163 MJ/s, the additional plant costs are on the order of 1 to 5% of the total investment for a 1300-MW(electric) PWR power station for pure electricity production.