[ RadSafe ] IFR and TWR with Bill and Melinda Gates Inteview on 60 minutes. What's Killing The Nuclear Industry?

Mon May 20 21:36:47 CDT 2013

Do you mean a glass is still a half empty? ;-(
It was empty before, its already halfway :-)

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 7:29 AM, KARAM, PHILIP <ANDREW.KARAM at nypd.org>wrote:

> Neat idea - but the problem is getting one built. Until then, as with
> thorium reactors, it's just a promising idea.
>
> Andy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of David Lee
> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 4:00 PM
> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] IFR and TWR with Bill and Melinda Gates
> Inteview on 60 minutes. What's Killing The Nuclear Industry?
>
> Jaro,
>
> Thank you, for a such detailed and up to the date info. I got feeling,
> that
> something is cooking there!
>
> Here is what I looked up. So it is Washington State outfit, Bellevue
> (North) pretty close to Redmond (East).
> May be, I need to drop my resume there. Who knows, someone may
> be interested in an old dog like me, who knows a little about a lot and
> not
> a lot about anything.
> As ya'l can see, I got no life, sitting on Radsafe on the weekend. And I
> am VERY tired of working, commuting to all these "dead end" jobs with
> bossholes.
> *Corporate Information***
>
> TerraPower, LLC
> 330 120th Ave NE, Suite 100
> Bellevue, WA 98005
> Phone: (425) 691-4086
>
>
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 12:11 PM, Jaro Franta
> <jaro_10kbq at videotron.ca>wrote:
>
> > I haven't seen any updates in the last couple of years on TerrPower's
> TWR,
> > but presumably the design keeps evolving.....
> >
> >
> >
> >
> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11686324/Ellis_et_al-TWRs_A_Truly_Su
> stai
> >
> nable_Resource.pdf<https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11686324/Ellis_et
> _al-TWRs_A_Truly_Sustainable_Resource.pdf>
> >
> >
> >
> > And from another publication.....
> >
> >
> > Fuel Cycle Analysis of Once-Through Nuclear Systems
> > Prepared for
> > U.S. Department of Energy
> > Systems Analysis Campaign
> > T. K. Kim and T. A. Taiwo
> > August 10, 2010
> >
> >
> > 3.6 TerraPower Traveling Wave Reactor Concept
> >
> >
> > The Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR) concept being developed by TerraPower
> is
> > intended to provide a technology pathway for fast reactors that do not
> > require reprocessing facilities and a system that offers a high fuel
> > utilization [Ellis 2010]. The system adopts the breed and burn concept
> in a
> > fast reactor, relying in the use of depleted uranium fuel to generate
> a
> > significant fraction of the system power. The system will have no
> external
> > fuel refueling but will allow internal fuel shuffling. Similarly to
> all
> > breed and burn concepts, the initial core of the TWR requires some
> amount
> > of
> > fissile fuel, which is currently assumed to be enriched uranium fuel.
> Since
> > the intent is a regime with no fuel reprocessing, the use of
> transuranic
> > elements derived from LWR used nuclear fuel is not an option.
> TerraPower
> > speculates that the TWR should be able to achieve a uranium
> utilization
> > that
> > is 40 times greater than that of current LWRs.
> >
> > The current version of the TWR design is based on elements of
> sodium-cooled
> > fast reactor technology that have been tested in a large number of
> > one-of-a-kind reactors over the years. Conceptually, the core consists
> of
> > hexagonal fuel assemblies containing enriched uranium fuel or depleted
> > uranium fuel. The core arrangement is such that the breed and burn
> wave
> > does
> > not move, but is "stationary". This stationary wave is achieved by
> > periodically moving fuel material in and out of the breed and burn
> zones
> > (shuffling). Metallic fuel is considered for the design because it
> offers
> > high heavy metal loading and excellent neutron economy. Zirconium is
> used
> > for alloying the metallic fuel to improve the dimensional stability of
> the
> > fuel during irradiation and to inhibit low-temperature eutectic and
> > corrosion damage of the cladding.
> >
> > TerraPower is now considering the "repurposing" (or re-cladding or
> > reconditioning) of the fuel following use. This is to allow the high
> burnup
> > in a given pass through the core to be increased to a much higher
> value
> > (about 50%). This repurposing could involve a simplified reprocessing
> step.
> > In the paper by Ellis et al., the proposed approach is melt refining
> [Ellis
> > 2010]. This is a new twist to the TWR concept. The evolving reactor
> design
> > and associated fuel cycle for the TWR is however to be expected.
> >
> > The activities on the TWR design are proprietary to TerraPower LLC.
> > Information is provided here to inform USDOE efforts on assessing
> advanced
> > reactor concepts.
> >
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >
> >
> >  Jaro
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
> > [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of David Lee
> > Sent: May-18-13 2:44 PM
> > To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing
> List
> > Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] IFR and TWR with Bill and Melinda Gates
> Inteview
> > on
> > 60 minutes. What's Killing The Nuclear Industry?
> >
> > George,
> >
> > Thank you, for explaining it so nicely. My memory, is not as well as
> it
> > used
> > to be, so I am not sure, if I ever heard of this reactor concept
> before.
> >
> > I did not know that you guys at Argonne worked on such sophisticated
> and
> > cool things! kudos to you guys, I am very impressed!!!
> > Fissile trigger and breeder in within in waves. I bet it was exciting
> and
> > exhausting to do reactor design calculations.
> > ...............
> > .............
> > .......
> > ....
> > ...
> >
> > On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 10:14 AM, George Stanford
> > <gstanford at aya.yale.edu>wrote:
> >
> > > David:
> > >
> > >       No, not heavy water (not even heavy water could make depleted
> > > uranium go critical -- CANDUs can use natural uranium).
> > >
> > >   .  TerraPower's TWR (Travelling Wave Reactor) is a variant of the
> > > IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) developed at Argonne National
> Laboratory.
> > > It will use metal fuel and be cooled by liquid sodium (no
> moderator).
> > >
> > >      Both IFR and TWR need an initial charge of fissile material
> > > (U-235 or Pu-239), and then they breed enough new fissile to keep
> > > themselves going indefinitely, using ~1 ton of depleted uranium per
> > > GWe-year of energy produced.  The main difference is that the TWR
> > > would be loaded with 60 years-worth of fuel from the start (i.e.
> > > something like 80 tons per GWe), whereas the IFR would recycle its
> > > fuel much more frequently, adding fresh depleted periodically, and
> thus
> > would be very much smaller.
> > >
> > >      George S. Stanford
> > >      Reactor physicist. retired from Argonne National Laboratory
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**~~~
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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