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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
J. B. M. De Haas, J. C. Kuijper
Nuclear Technology | Volume 151 | Number 2 | August 2005 | Pages 192-200
Technical Paper | Advances in Nuclear Fuel Management - Fuel Management of Reactors Other Than Light Water Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3643
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The core physics investigations at the Nuclear Research Consultancy Group in the Netherlands, as part of the activities within the HTR-N project of the European Fifth Framework Program, are focused on the incineration of pure (first- and second-generation) Pu fuels in the reference pebble bed high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTR) HTR-MODUL with a continuous reload [MEDUL, (MEhrfach DUrchLauf, multipass)] fueling strategy in which the spherical fuel elements, or pebbles, pass through the core a number of times before being permanently discharged. For pebbles fueled with different loadings of plutonium, the feasibility of a sustained fuel cycle under nominal reactor conditions was investigated by means of the reactivity and temperature coefficients of the reactor. The HTR-MODUL was found to be a very effective reactor to reduce the stockpile of first-generation plutonium. It reduces the amount of plutonium to about one-sixth of the original and reduces the risk of proliferation by denaturing the plutonium vector. For second-generation plutonium the incineration is less favorable, as the amount of plutonium is only halved.