STATUS OF PHENIX OPERATION AND OF SODIUM FAST REACTORS IN THE WORLD

摘要

The French FBR Phenix restarted in 2003 after 6 years of safety reevaluation procedures. This paper describes the successful operations at the plant in 2004 (availability factor: 74 percent), in 2005 (availability factor: 85 percent) and in 2006 (78percent). The plant's experimental program is explained, with descriptions of the irradiations for transmutation tests, for new fuel and for new material. The plant's successful operations provide a good opportunity for global thinking about sodium fast reactors for the future. After several years of Generation IV discussions, many countries have announced or confirmed their priority for the fast sodium reactor as reference design. These countries today include Japan, China, Korea, India and Russia (simultaneously with lead reactors). With the GNEP, the United States has announced a project for a waste-burning reactor. In France, within the scope of the law of 28 June 2006, the country has announced and confirmed the decision to build a prototype scheduled for operation in 2020. These declarations are all sustained in a very practical manner by ongoing events in this field. Following the excellent results obtained by the BN600 (600 Mwe), Russia has re-launched the BN 800 project. China is currently in the process of building a 75-MWT research reactor, scheduled for divergence in 2009. In Japan, work is underway on MONJU (250 Mwe) for divergence in 2008. In India, a 1200-MWT power reactor is under construction, scheduled for divergence in 2010, the first of a unit of three sodium reactors. The stakes behind this renaissance are important indeed. These fast reactors promise to produce world energy for thousands of years through breeding. No production of greenhouse gases. And long-life waste is burned. Moreover, significant progress has been made in terms of safety, reliability, availability and inspectability for this reactor type, and will be used in the design of the future sodium reactors.