Ex-Core Production of Plutonium 238 in Commercial Power Reactors

摘要

AREVA NP's North American headquarters, in cooperation with Strategic Energy Resources, Inc., formed a team of engineers to confirm an innovative method using proprietary target hardware for producing Pu-238 ex-core in many generation 2 commercial Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs). The method and unique hardware can permit ex-core PWR isotope production without any modification to the nuclear core or to fuel management. The method and hardware require no direct changes to the reactor or its components other than readily accessible placement and then removal of target containing hardware after a 24 month fuel cycle. Insertion and removal occur during normal refueling activities with little impact on expensive critical path refueling outage time. Physics and Thermal-Hydraulic analyses data are promising with Pu-236 concentration being within acceptable bounds. The team now calculates it can meet, and if required, supplement an equal or better amount of the best U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) annual production capability of Pu-238 using all available DOE research reactors. Expressions of interest from certain US nuclear utilities have been discussed and offered. Needed are DOE support and a controlled supply of Neptunium 237 target material currently under development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with confirmation of the Np-237 Oxide - Aluminum thermal conductivity coefficient accuracy, now under evaluation by ORNL. The NRC licensing hurdles associated with defense and commercial isotope production in commercial power generating reactors have been addressed through production of tritium in the core of Watts Bar and Cobalt 60 in the cores of the Clinton and Hope Creek commercial power reactors. The real challenge to NASA/DOE and the European Space Agency (ESA) is how to best assure, stabilize and utilize an adequate supply of this useful isotope to meet man's quest for knowledge in the outer solar system and beyond.