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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
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College students help develop waste-measuring device at Hanford
A partnership between Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) and Washington State University has resulted in the development of a device to measure radioactive and chemical tank waste at the Hanford Site. WRPS is the contractor at Hanford for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
Taraknath Woddi, Kenneth N. Ricci
Nuclear Technology | Volume 184 | Number 2 | November 2013 | Pages 156-168
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-22
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A parametric study was performed on the thorium-to-233U breeder fuel cycle for pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) similar to the existing CANDU type. The objective was to estimate the sensitivity of the thorium breeder PHWR energy cost to fuel reprocessing costs, reactor capital costs, fuel specific power, fuel-to-moderator ratio, and reactor size and to find optimal parameters to minimize the energy cost for reasonable economic assumptions. A baseline model thorium heavy water breeder reactor (THWBR) was developed from these parameters to show how an existing PHWR would perform economically if fueled only with thorium and the 233U bred and reprocessed from that thorium. This study found that the baseline model THWBR is not cost competitive with the current PHWR fuel cycle using natural uranium but may be significantly closer in cost to the natural uranium fuel cycle than models discussed in previous publications. Because the proposed thorium reactor can, with the assistance of some thorium fuel reprocessing, achieve a higher average fuel burnup than the once-through natural uranium cycle, the waste management costs will be lower while the reprocessing costs will be higher than the natural uranium fuel system. When the strategic and proliferation-resistance values are included, the thorium breeder PHWR may be competitive with natural uranium PHWRs and light water reactors in some markets. The next phase of our study is expected to show how to use novel combinations of unconventional PHWR core geometries to increase the breeding ratio and fuel burnup, decrease the reprocessing requirements, and make a thermal breeder reactor more economical.