pwr_april-2024 - 7

GLOBAL MONITOR
able to produce an additional 358,000
GWe-yrs of electricity. "
Government sources suggest fuel for
the PFBR was custom fabricated under
the supervision of the Nuclear Recycle
Board. Modi in January dedicated the
Demonstration Fast Reactor Fuel Reprocessing
Plant, a $48 million facility
at IGCAR in Kalpakkam. The facility " is
the only of its kind in the world and is
capable of reprocessing both carbide
and oxide fuels discharged from the fast
reactors, " the government said.
Last year, the PFBR completed major
activities, including integrated leak rate
testing of the reactor containment and
independent verification and validations
of systems that require sodium filling in
the main vessel. These aspects are critical
for safe operation, given that leaks
in sodium systems can be exceptionally
hazardous. The PFBR comprises a primary
sodium circuit, secondary sodium circuits,
safety-grade heat removal circuits,
and a steam-water circuit.
All sodium
pipelines inside the reactor containment
building (RCB) are double-walled and
provided with a hot guard pipe, BHAVINI
has noted.
FBRs-specifically, Argonne National
Laboratory's Experimental Breeder Reactor
I (EBR I) in Idaho-kicked off the
nuclear power age in 1951. But despite
countless breakthroughs, fast-neutron
reactors have remained commercially
elusive. Only about 20 fast reactors have
operated, some since the 1950s, and
only one has operated in a commercial
capacity-France's 1,250-MWe commercial
prototype Superphenix, which ran
from 1985 to 1998, when it was closed
on political grounds.
At the end of 2016, Russia put online
the 800-MWe (2,100-MWth) BN-800 at
its Beloyarsk nuclear plant, a sodiumcooled
fast reactor project that POWER
recognized as a pioneering Top Plant in
2016. The BN-800 reactor was, for the
first time, fully loaded with uranium-plutonium
MOX fuel in 2022. In December
2023, it was preparing to begin pilot operation
loaded with fuel assemblies holding
a fuel matrix comprising plutonium
as well as other transuranic elements-
americium-241 and neptunium-237.
Rosatom has said, however, that the
plant's primary purpose is experimental-to
" refine the fast breeder technology,
which will eventually be used to
close the nuclear fuel cycle. " Nuclear
engineering company OKBM Afrikantov
is currently developing BN-1200M,
a 1.2-GWe/2.8-GWth sodium-cooled
reactor, to be installed at Beloyarsk
Unit 5 (Figure 2). Rosatom, in tandem,
has kicked off construction of
the 300-MWe/700-MWth lead-cooled
BREST-OD-300 fast reactor at TVEL's
Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk.
" This is the world's first new generation
lead-cooled fast reactor, " Rosatom
noted in January. " The BREST-OD-300
reactor will provide itself with its main
energy
component-plutonium-239-
reproducing it from the isotope uranium-238,
which has a relative abundance
of more than 99% (it is the isotope uranium-235,
which makes about 0.7% of
natural uranium, that is currently used
to produce energy in thermal reactors).
The introduction of such technologies
will increase exponentially the efficiency
of natural uranium, " it said in January.
According to the World Nuclear Association,
several
other
fast-neutron
designs
are readying for near- to midterm
deployment. In the U.S., that inSingle-Source
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