Issue |
EPJ Nuclear Sci. Technol.
Volume 7, 2021
Fuel Cycle Simulation TWoFCS 2021
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 22 | |
Number of page(s) | 12 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2021021 | |
Published online | 01 December 2021 |
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2021021
Regular Article
Enrichment dynamics for advanced reactor HALEU support
1
Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
2
National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
* e-mail: amandab7@illinois.edu
Received:
15
July
2021
Received in final form:
6
October
2021
Accepted:
8
November
2021
Published online: 1 December 2021
Transitioning to High Assay Low Enriched Uranium-fueled reactors will alter the material requirements of the current nuclear fuel cycle, in terms of the mass of enriched uranium and Separative Work Unit capacity. This work simulates multiple fuel cycle scenarios using Cyclus to compare how the type of the advanced reactor deployed and the energy growth demand affect the material requirements of the transition to High Assay Low Enriched Uranium-fueled reactors. Fuel cycle scenarios considered include the current fleet of Light Water Reactors in the U.S. as well as a no-growth and a 1% growth transition to either the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation Micro Modular Reactor or the X-energy Xe-100 reactor from the current fleet of U.S. Light Water Reactors. This work explored parameters of interest including the number of advanced reactors deployed, the mass of enriched uranium sent to the reactors, and the Separative Work Unit capacity required to enrich natural uranium for the reactors. Deploying Micro Modular Reactors requires a higher average mass and Separative Work Unit capacity than deploying Xe-100 reactors, and a lower enriched uranium mass and a higher Separative Work Unity capacity than required to fuel Light Water Reactors before the transition. Fueling Xe-100 reactors requires less enriched uranium and Separative Work Unit capacity than fueling Light Water Reactors before the transition.
© A. M. Bachmann et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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