On the Burning of Plutonium Originating from Light Water Reactor Use in a Fast Molten Salt Reactor—A Neutron Physical Study

Bruno Merk and Dzianis Litskevich
Additional contact information
Bruno Merk: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Bautzner Landstrasse 400, Dresden 01328, Germany
Dzianis Litskevich: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Bautzner Landstrasse 400, Dresden 01328, Germany

Energies, 2015, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: An efficient burning of the plutonium produced during light water reactor (LWR) operation has the potential to significantly improve the sustainability indices of LWR operations. The work offers a comparison of the efficiency of Pu burning in different reactor configurations—a molten salt fast reactor, a LWR with mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, and a sodium cooled fast reactor. The calculations are performed using the HELIOS 2 code. All results are evaluated against the plutonium burning efficiency determined in the Consommation Accrue de Plutonium dans les Réacteurs à Neutrons RApides (CAPRA) project. The results are discussed with special view on the increased sustainability of LWR use in the case of successful avoidance of an accumulation of Pu which otherwise would have to be forwarded to a final disposal. A strategic discussion is given about the unavoidable plutonium production, the possibility to burn the plutonium to avoid a burden for the future generations which would have to be controlled.

Keywords: plutonium; plutonium management; plutonium burning; nuclear reactors; molten salt reactor (MSR); fast reactor; light water reactor; mixed oxide (MOX) fuel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/11/12328/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/11/12328/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:8:y:2015:i:11:p:12328-12572:d:58357

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().