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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.
Igor Slessarev, G. Palmiotti, M. Salvatores, V. Berthou
Nuclear Technology | Volume 146 | Number 3 | June 2004 | Pages 230-243
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3502
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new fuel cycle concept - waste-free, intrinsically safe, and efficient (WISE) - based on a "clean" nuclear plant using mobile fuel (MF) is proposed. WISE does not perturb the radiological equilibrium by minimizing transuranium and long-lived-fission product wastes. The main characteristic of WISE is the use of MF systems and of a feed-and-bleed fuel cycle strategy. Irradiated fuel together with fission products always remains inside a WISE core. This implies no release of waste until fuel reserves are available. After the fuel reserves are exhausted, an on-line reprocessing technology can be applied in order to minimize waste.