Nuclear Power Related Media Thread, page-4297

Critical Need:

The next generation of advanced nuclear reactors (ARs) is currently being developed to enhance the safety, reduce the cost, and increase the efficiency of nuclear power generation, which is important to meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission goals. Challenges associated with disposal pathways of waste, such as used nuclear fuel (UNF), however, threaten AR development and deployment. ONWARDS seeks to develop and demonstrate breakthrough technologies that will facilitate a 10x reduction in AR waste volume generation or repository footprint. In addition, ONWARDS aims to advance development of high-performance AR waste forms while maintaining exemplary safeguards standards and global back-end costs in the accepted range of $1/megawatt-hour.
Project Innovation + Advantages:

Chloride salts possess different levels of volatility at high temperatures, which can be used in targeted separations. TerraPower proposes to use a chloride-based volatility (CBV) process to separate uranium from used nuclear fuel (UNF), and investigate tunable CBV parameters to achieve a high degree of uranium recovery and thereby reduce waste volumes. Work will begin with surrogate oxide and molten salt used nuclear fuels and subsequently progress to demonstration with actual oxide UNF. CBV can be applied to metallic-, oxide-, and salt-based reactor fuels. It may be possible to reduce repository burdens by a factor of 10-20x, with prior work demonstrating recovery of better than 99% of uranium from irradiated oxide fuel. The proposed work will be used to predict performance parameters for a full-scale production line and clarify the economics of a production plant with multiple production lines.
Potential Impact:

By identifying and addressing challenges at the back end of the fuel cycle before the deployment of future AR technologies, ONWARDS will: