Hussein Khalil, Argonne National Laboratory (USA), director of Nuclear Engineering Division.

Please say a couple of words about possible role of ABR reactor (advanced burner reactor) for nuclear industry in the United States and in the world.

The advanced burner reactor ABR is a fast nuclear reactor that in the global nuclear partnership will be used to consume some of problematic constituents in the spent fuel that discharged from the reactors. These problematic constituents are primarily the heavy elements such as actinides, plutonium-241, americium-241 and neptunium-237.

If these elements are discharged in the spent fuel in a waste repository, their heat generation and the radiotoxicity creates, first of all, the requirement for the large space for geological isolation in the repository and also it leads to long-term need to isolate these wastes.

So, it can greatly simplify the waste disposal, if we do not discharge these constituents into the wastes and rather recycle them and use them in the advanced burner reactor, where they are consumed by fission and used to generate energy instead of being sent into geological repository.

What about the type of this reactor? Do you have any idea about its coolant, fuel and other parameters? Do you have any decision for it?

There are no final decisions because the U.S. Department of Energy is seeking the input from industrial teams around the world. Many different industrial teams are being asked to contribute their ideas. Now we know about the state of the technology; however, it is much more likely if this reactor will be built, say, in timeframe of 2020-2025 then we will need to use more established technology. In this case it has to be a sodium-cooled reactor.

Certainly, there is an interest for the longer term. For example, in the Generation-IV we consider the different reactor technologies as the lead-cooled reactor, because they offer some potential improvements. However the timeframe that envisioned for the GNEP encourages the using of proven technologies. This relates to the sodium reactor and probably also to the fuel type which would likely be either oxide or metallic fuel, with which we have the greatest experience.

What do you think about possible cooperation with Russia for such a project like ABR reactor?

I think the cooperation with Russia will be very strongly welcomed. It is very clear that Russia has a lot of experience in fast reactor technology, and frankly, it is more recent experience because our sodium reactors were shutdown more than a decade ago and there is some decline in the infrastructure. So, we will definitely benefit from cooperation with Russia and other countries with advanced fast reactor programs.

In fact, I believe we already discuss in the bilateral working groups the possibilities to engage in the fast reactor technology development.

Thank you for interview for AtomInfo.Ru.

SOURCE: AtomInfo.Ru

DATE: October 10, 2007

Topics: GNEP, Russia, USA, Fast breeders