Economic Prospects of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Fuel Cycle


Book Description

The IFR fuel cycle based on pyroprocessing involves only few operational steps and the batch-oriented process equipment systems are compact. This results in major cost reductions in all of three areas of reprocessing, fabrication, and waste treatment. This document discusses the economic aspects of this fuel cycle.




Progress and Status of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Fuel Cycle Development


Book Description

The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) fuel cycle holds promise for substantial improvements in economics, diversion-resistance, and waste management. This paper discusses technical features of the IFR fuel cycle, its technical progress, the development status, and the future plans and directions. 10 refs.







Integral Fast Reactor Concept


Book Description

The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is an innovative LMR concept, being developed at Argonne National Laboratory, that fully exploits the inherent properties of liquid metal cooling and metallic fuel to achieve breakthroughs in economics and inherent safety. This paper describes key features and potential advantages of the IFR concept, technology development status, fuel cycle economics potential, and future development path.




Plans for the Development of the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) Fuel Cycle


Book Description

The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is a concept for a self-contained facility in which several sodium-cooled fast reactors of moderate size are located at the same site along with complete fuel-recycle and waste-treatment facilities. After the initial core loading with enriched uranium or plutonium, only natural or depleted uranium is shipped to the plant, and only wastes in final disposal forms are shipped out. The reactors have driver and blanket fuels of uranium-plutonium-zirconium alloys in stainless steel cladding. The use of metal alloy fuels is central to the IFR concept, contributing to the inherent safety of the reactor, the ease of reprocessing, and the relatively low capital and operating costs. Discharged fuels are recovered in a pyrochemical process that consists of two basic steps: an electrolytic process to separate fission products from actinides, and halide slagging to separate plutonium from uranium.







Progress and Status of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Development Program


Book Description

In the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) development program, the entire reactor system -- reactor, fuel cycle, and waste process is being developed and optimized at the same time as a single integral entity. The ALMR reactor plant design is being developed by an industrial team headed by General Electric and is presented in a companion paper. Detailed discussions on the present status of the IFR technology development activities in the areas of fuels, pyroprocessing, safety, core design, and fuel cycle demonstration are presented in the other two companion papers that follows this.




Status of the Integral Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Demonstration and Waste Management Practices


Book Description

Over the past few years, Argonne National Laboratory has been preparing for the demonstration of the fuel cycle for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), an advanced reactor concept that takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety and operations, fuel-cycle economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. The IFR fuel cycle, which will be demonstrated at Argonne-West in Idaho, employs a pyrometallurgical process using molten salts and liquid metals to recover actinides from spent fuel. The required facility modifications and process equipment for the demonstration are nearing completion. Their status and the results from initial fuel fabrication work, including the waste management aspects, are presented. Additionally, estimated compositions of the various process waste streams have been made, and characterization and treatment methods are being developed. The status of advanced waste processing equipment being designed and fabricated is described.




Integral Fast Reactor


Book Description

Argonne National Laboratory is developing a reactor concept that would be an important part of the worlds energy future. This report discusses the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept which provides significant improvements over current generation reactors in reactor safety, plant complexity, nuclear proliferation, and waste generation. Two major facilities, a reactor and a fuel cycle facility, make up the IFR concept. The reactor uses fast neutrons and metal fuel in a sodium coolant at atmospheric pressure that relies on laws of physics to keep it safe. The fuel cycle facility is a hot cell using remote handling techniques for fabricating reactor fuel. The fuel feed stock includes spent fuel from the reactor, and potentially, spent light water reactor fuel and plutonium from weapons. This paper discusses the unique features of the IFR concept and the differences the quality assurance program has from current commercial practices. The IFR concept provides an opportunity to design a quality assurance program that makes use of the best contemporary ideas on management and quality.




Simulated First Operating Campaign for the Integral Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Demonstration


Book Description

This report discusses the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) which is an innovative liquid-metal-cooled reactor concept that is being developed by Argonne National Laboratory. It takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid-metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety, operation, fuel cycle-economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. Over the next few years, the IFR fuel cycle will be demonstrated at Argonne-West in Idaho. Spent fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) win be processed in its associated Fuel Cycle Facility (FCF) using a pyrochemical method that employs molten salts and liquid metals in an electrorefining operation. As part of the preparation for the fuel cycle demonstration, a computer code, PYRO, was developed at Argonne to model the electrorefining operation using thermodynamic and empirical data. This code has been used extensively to evaluate various operating strategies for the fuel cycle demonstration. The modeled results from the first operating campaign are presented. This campaign is capable of processing more than enough material to refuel completely the EBR-II core.