Some questions on the IFR

[davidm]

Given a serious commitment to building an IFR how much would it cost and how long would it take to get a commercial version up and running? It would seem with AGW closing in on us, time particularly would be a serious consideration.

Is this technology broadly applicable or should it be restricted to advanced nuclear states?

Would it be easy to alter the IFR process(Apply this to any breeder reactor) if the state developed a latter day desire to go into plutonium bomb making?

[anonposter]

May 11, 2012 5:25:39 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Given a serious commitment to building an IFR how much would it cost and how long would it take to get a commercial version up and running? It would seem with AGW closing in on us, time particularly would be a serious consideration.

The only answer to how much it'd cost and how long it'd take is: "It depends".

Though I suspect that if you cut away the bulls*** and just told the engineers to get it done that less than a decade before you've got a design ready to be mass produced should be doable (maybe even faster).

May 11, 2012 5:25:39 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Is this technology broadly applicable or should it be restricted to advanced nuclear states?

I would say that this particular question is badly worded, stable democracies are by definition not worth worrying about so whether a country has nuclear technology isn't what matters.

May 11, 2012 5:25:39 GMT 9.5 @davidm said:

Would it be easy to alter the IFR process(Apply this to any breeder reactor) if the state developed a latter day desire to go into plutonium bomb making?

The process the IFR uses was designed to make things difficult for anyone trying to make a bomb so it probably wouldn't be easy.

Although anyone with a suitable reactor could potentially switch to another process (though the safeguards would catch trying to use any reactor bought on the open market for weapons production so anyone who wanted to proliferate would be more likely to use equipment they built themselves regardless of what we're willing to sell them).

Still, we could probably get away with letting non-democracies only have MSRs if we wanted to keep fast reactors away from them.

[Barry Brook]

David M, for answers to your questions on the IFR, there is a detailed resource compiled on BNC at the "Integral Fast Reactor - Facts and Discussion" series This covers all the questions you've asked above.

If you still have specific queries after reading these 22 entries, then I'd be happy to answer them:
bravenewclimate.com/category/ifr-fad/

[davidm]

Thanks for the link Barry. Well a percentage comparison between Fast Reactors and LWRs (IFRFaD13) doesn't give me any direct cost number or a timeline. I'll certainly look into other links, some of which I already have. I don't expect you to do my homework for me but if anybody who is familiar with the entire IFR topic can address particularly the cost in dollar terms and timeline matter I'd appreciate it.

[Barry Brook]

Tom Blees estimated <$2,000/kW for an nth-of-a-kind S-PRISM plant, based on GE estimates and other data, as detailed in Prescription for the Planet. The first commercial demo units will clearly be more expensive, so the question is very dependent on context.

[davidm]

I checked out Tom Blees on YouTube. Here is the first part of a 3 part interview. I've seen the first. Interesting interview.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uJ4NaSVLn0&feature=relmfu

[davidm]

I also thought this Frontline interview with Dr, Charles Till, co-developer of the Integral Fast Reactor, was interesting.

Q: What is the concept of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), and how [does] it address the issue of waste and of using energy and so forth?

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[davidm]

National Geographic offers some measured questions about the IFR.

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100831-can-nuclear-waste-spark-an-energy-solution/

Critics of the concept, however, have not been won over. They insist that PRISM and similar IFR ideas are merely old nuclear wine in a new bottle, and that the technology is dangerous, prohibitively expensive and unlikely to contribute much to future electricity generation.

MODERATOR
See my comment above.

[David B. Benson]

The committee has found no significant technical barriers to the use of electrometallurgical technology to treat EBR-II spent fuel, and EMT therefore represents a potentially viable technology for DOE spent nuclear fuel treatment. However, before using EMT for processing other spent fuels in the DOE inventory, which would generate much larger amounts of these wastes than were produced in ANL’s demonstration project, it would be necessary for these waste forms to receive the acceptance qualification. is the conclusion to the Executive Summary of National Research Council. Electrometallurgical Techniques for DOE Spent Fuel Treatment: Final Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2000.

Less optimistic is We Need to Reprocess Spent Nuclear Fuel, And Can Do It Safely, At Reasonable Cost by Clinton Bastin, 21st Century Science & Technology, Summer 2008. He states numerous difficulties with the electrometallurgy (pyroprocessing) demonstrated with the EBR-II. See the box on page 19.

Would be helpful if Till & Chang addressed these issues.

[David B. Benson]

An overview of fast neutron reactors and proposed designs thereof, around the world:
www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Fast-Neutron-Reactors/

Some of the concerns about pyroprocessing are addressed.

[Ed Leaver]

Three key factoids:
1. pyrocessing-emt is complex.
2. there's more than one way to do it.
3. all fission fuel cycles will be questioned until the last denialist dies of heat stroke. (circa 2084 if they get their way.)

I came across a fascinating conference proceedings a few months back: Actinide and Fission Product Partitioning and Transmutation (Nov 2010). The whole thing is thoroughly engaging, but the Figure 3 on page 89 by Petrovic et al. gives the birds-eye overview:   
Given all the interest, economic impacts, and technological trade-offs, those who would never like pyroprocessing to be ready for prime-time can argue pyroprocessing never will be ready for prime time so why bother? On the other end are the "better is the enemy of good enough" engineers who would like to get some moderate scale prototypes Out There so we can get some experience. (And generate some clean juice in the process.) These guys were ready twenty years ago with IFR. That got canned. Superphenix got proxmired. These guys are ready today with S-PRISM. That got no customers. Meanwhile, Back in the (former) USSR: though not yet an integral design, fuel loading begins at the first BN-800 fast reactor that will lead to BN-1200 commercial plant.  Scientific progress goes "boink."