fast reactors

The 'advanced' nuclear power sector isn't advanced ‒ it is dystopian (see the article in this issue of Nuclear Monitor). And it isn't advancing, thankfully. Many 'advanced' reactor projects are promoted ‒ there are lists of them, even lists of lists¹ ‒ but meaningful funding, from governments and industry alike, is lacking.² Kevin Anderson, Project Director for Nuclear Energy Insider, noted earlier this year that there "is unprecedented growth in companies proposing design alternatives for the future of nuclear, but precious little progress in terms of market-ready solutions."³

In the US, even if all the private-sector Generation IV R&D funding was pooled together (an estimated US$1.3 billion⁴), it is unlikely that it would suffice to build a single prototype reactor. An article by pro-nuclear researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Engineering and Public Policy, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in 2018, argues that no US advanced reactor design will be commercialized before mid-century and that purported benefits remain "speculative".⁴

A 2015 report by the French government's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) states: "There is still much R&D to be done to develop the Generation IV nuclear reactors, as well as for the fuel cycle and the associated waste management which depends on the system chosen."⁵ IRSN is also skeptical about safety claims: "At the present stage of development, IRSN does not notice evidence that leads to conclude that the systems under review are likely to offer a significantly improved level of safety compared with Generation III reactors ... "⁵

The US Government Accountability Office released a report in July 2015 on the status of small modular reactors (SMRs) and other 'advanced' reactor concepts in the US.⁶ The report concluded:

"While light water SMRs and advanced reactors may provide some benefits, their development and deployment face a number of challenges. Both SMRs and advanced reactors require additional technical and engineering work to demonstrate reactor safety and economics ... Depending on how they are resolved, these technical challenges may result in higher-cost reactors than anticipated, making them less competitive with large LWRs [light water reactors] or power plants using other fuels ... Both light water SMRs and advanced reactors face additional challenges related to the time, cost, and uncertainty associated with developing, certifying or licensing, and deploying new reactor technology, with advanced reactor designs generally facing greater challenges than light water SMR designs. It is a multi-decade process, with costs up to $1 billion to $2 billion, to design and certify or license the reactor design, and there is an additional construction cost of several billion dollars more per power plant."

The 2015/16 South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission concluded:⁷

"[A]dvanced fast reactors or reactors with other innovative designs are unlikely to be feasible or viable in South Australia in the foreseeable future. No licensed and commercially proven design is currently operating. Development to that point would require substantial capital investment. Moreover, the electricity generated has not been demonstrated to be cost-competitive with current light water reactor designs."

Fusion will likely never be commercialized. Commenting on problems with the supply and usage of both tritium and deuterium fuel, the sizable problem of parasitic energy consumption, and the inevitability that fusion reactors would share many of the drawbacks of fission reactors, fusion scientist Dr. Daniel Jassby states:⁸

"These impediments ‒ together with colossal capital outlay and several additional disadvantages shared with fission reactors ‒ will make fusion reactors more demanding to construct and operate, or reach economic practicality, than any other type of electrical energy generator. The harsh realities of fusion belie the claims of its proponents of "unlimited, clean, safe and cheap energy.""

Thorium is a very long way from commercial deployment.⁹ A 2012 report by the UK National Nuclear Laboratory states "more work is needed at the fundamental level to establish the basic knowledge and understanding", "thorium reprocessing and waste management are poorly understood", and the thorium fuel cycle "cannot be considered to be mature in any area."¹⁰ The World Nuclear Association notes that the commercialization of thorium fuels faces some "significant hurdles" and a "great deal of testing, analysis and licensing and qualification work is required before any thorium fuel can enter into service. This is expensive and will not eventuate without a clear business case and government support."¹¹

While there is a great deal of hype about small modular reactors (SMRs) from the nuclear industry and its enthusiasts, informed opinion is skeptical. For example, a 2017 Lloyd's Register report was based on the insights of almost 600 professionals and experts from utilities, distributors, operators and manufacturers who predict that SMRs have a "low likelihood of eventual take-up, and will have a minimal impact when they do arrive".¹² The OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency estimates a very modest <1 to 21 gigawatts of worldwide SMR capacity by 2035¹³ (by which time, at the current rate of installation, an additional 2500‒3000 GW of new renewable capacity will have been installed).

The slow death of fast reactors

The prospects for fast reactor technology ‒ the most significant sub-set of 'advanced' nuclear concepts ‒ have arguably never been bleaker. The number of operating fast reactors reached double figures in the late 1970s but has steadily fallen and will remain in single figures for the foreseeable future. Currently, just five fast reactors are operating ‒ all of them described by the World Nuclear Association as experimental or demonstration reactors.¹⁴

The historical pattern strongly suggests that fast reactors are on the way out, not on a pathway to becoming "mainstream" as the World Nuclear Association claims:¹⁴

1976 ‒ 7 operable fast reactors
1986 ‒ 11
1996 ‒ 7
2006 ‒ 6
2019 ‒ 5

One country after another has abandoned fast reactor technology. Nuclear physicist Thomas Cochran summarizes the history: "Fast reactor development programs failed in the: 1) United States; 2) France; 3) United Kingdom; 4) Germany; 5) Japan; 6) Italy; 7) Soviet Union/Russia 8) U.S. Navy and 9) the Soviet Navy. The program in India is showing no signs of success and the program in China is only at a very early stage of development."¹⁵

The Russian government recently clawed back US$4 billion from Rosatom's budget by postponing its already-glacial fast neutron reactor program; specifically, by deferring hold plans for what would have been the only gigawatt-scale fast neutron reactor anywhere in the world.¹⁶ Construction of a lead-cooled fast reactor (BREST-300) was scheduled for 2016 but construction has not yet begun.¹⁷ Plans for a SVBR-100 lead-bismuth cooled fast reactor have been abandoned.¹⁷

France recently abandoned plans for a demonstration fast reactor¹⁸ and the pursuit of fast reactor technology in France is no longer a priority according to the World Nuclear Association.¹⁹

France's disinterest in fast reactors extends to other Generation IV concepts. French nuclear agency CEA says that "industrial development of fourth-generation reactors is not planned before the second half of this century."¹⁸

Other fast reactor projects have collapsed in recent years. TerraPower abandoned its plan for a prototype fast reactor in China last year due to restrictions placed on nuclear trade with China by the Trump administration²⁰, and requests for US government funding to support its fast reactor R&D have reportedly received a negative reception.²¹

The plan for a 'versatile test reactor' to advance fast reactor technology in the US has not yet collapsed but probably will²², as was the case with the 'Next Generation Nuclear Plant Project' initiated in 2005 but abandoned in 2011 because of an impasse between government and industry over cost-sharing arrangements.²³

The US and UK governments have both considered using GE Hitachi's 'PRISM' fast reactor technology to process surplus plutonium stocks ‒ but both governments have rejected the proposal.²⁴ China's fast reactor program is rudimentary and underperforming; India's is troubled and underperforming.²⁵

Fast reactor technology has been around since the dawn of the nuclear age and is best described as failed Generation I technology ‒ "demonstrably failed technology" in the words of Prof. Allison Macfarlane, former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.²⁶

An existential crisis?

The situation for fast reactor technology could hardly be bleaker. The 'advanced' nuclear sector more generally faces a bleak future... and so does the conventional nuclear power industry. A sober assessment published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science last year concluded that it is most unlikely that any new large nuclear power plants will be built over the next several decades in the US; no US advanced reactor design will be commercialized before mid-century; and establishing an SMR industry would require subsidies amounting to several hundred billion dollars over the next several decades.⁴

Westinghouse neatly illustrates the nuclear industry's existential crisis. The company has designed small, medium and large-sized reactors over the past two decades:

• Its SMR program is modest and will likely be abandoned in the absence of ongoing government subsidies.
• The plan for medium-sized reactors was abandoned without a ball being bowled.²⁷
• The catastrophic failure of AP1000 projects in South Carolina (abandoned after the expenditure of at least $US9 billion) and Georgia (the cost estimate for two reactors under construction has doubled to US$27‒30+ billion) bankrupted Westinghouse and almost bankrupted its parent company Toshiba.

The efforts of Westinghouse and Toshiba to profit from the 'nuclear renaissance' could hardly have ended any more disastrously.

With the aging of the global reactor fleet, the International Atomic Energy Agency expects that more than 80% of nuclear power capacity to be shut down by 2050.²⁸ It seems increasingly unlikely that nuclear new-build will match closures over that period. And it seems most unlikely that 'advanced' nuclear will come to the rescue.

References:

1. https://neutronbytes.com/advanced-reactor-development-projects/

2. See for example: Nuclear Monitor #872‒873, 7 March 2019, 'No-one wants to pay for SMRs: US and UK case studies', https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/872-873/no-one-wants-pay-s...

3. Nuclear Energy Insider, 2019, 'The time is now – build the investment case to scale SMR', https://www.nuclearenergyinsider.com/international-smr-advanced-reactor

4. M. Granger Morgan, Ahmed Abdulla, Michael J. Ford, and Michael Rath, July 2018 'US nuclear power: The vanishing low-carbon wedge', Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/06/26/1804655115)

5. Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, 2015, 'Review of Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems', www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News/Pages/20150427_Generation-IV-nuclear-energy... Direct download: www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News/Documents/IRSN_Report-GenIV_04-2015.pdf

6. U.S. Government Accountability Office, July 2015, 'Nuclear Reactors: Status and challenges in development and deployment of new commercial concepts', GAO-15-652, www.gao.gov/assets/680/671686.pdf

7. http://yoursay.sa.gov.au/system/NFCRC_Final_Report_Web.pdf

8. Daniel Jassby, 19 April 2017, 'Fusion reactors: Not what they're cracked up to be', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-...

9. Nuclear Monitor #801, 9 April 2015, 'Thor-bores and uro-sceptics: thorium's friendly fire', https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/801/thor-bores-and-uro...

10. UK National Nuclear Laboratory Ltd., 5 March 2012, 'Comparison of thorium and uranium fuel cycles', www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/nuclear/6300-compar...

11. www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Thorium/

12. Lloyd's Register, February 2017, 'Technology Radar – A Nuclear Perspective: Executive summary', https://www.lr.org/en/latest-news/technology-radar-low-carbon/

See also: World Nuclear News, 9 Feb 2017, Nuclear more competitive than fossil fuels: report', http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE-Nuclear-more-competitive-than-fossi...

13. OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, 2016, 'Small Modular Reactors: Nuclear Energy Market Potential for Near-term Deployment', https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2016/7213-smrs.pdf

14. World Nuclear Association, Sept 2016, 'Fast Neutron Reactors', https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-gen...

15. International Panel on Fissile Materials, 17 Feb 2010, 'History and status of fast breeder reactor programs worldwide', http://fissilematerials.org/library/rr08.pdf

16. World Nuclear Association, 13 August 2019, 'Rosatom postpones fast reactor project, report says', http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rosatom-postpones-fast-reacto...

17. https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Rep...

18. Reuters, 30 Aug 2019, 'France drops plans to build sodium-cooled nuclear reactor', https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower-astrid/france-dro...

19. World Nuclear Association, June 2019, 'Nuclear Power in France', https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/count...

20. Reuters, 2 Jan 2019, 'Bill Gates' nuclear venture hits snag amid U.S. restrictions on China deals: WSJ', https://www.reuters.com/article/us-terrapower-china/bill-gates-nuclear-v...

21. Dan Yurman, 10 Feb 2019, 'Why are so many firms investing in new uranium fuel projects?', https://neutronbytes.com/2019/02/10/why-are-so-many-firms-investing-in-n...

22. Ed Lyman, 15 Feb 2018, 'The "Versatile Fast Neutron Source": A Misguided Nuclear Reactor Project', https://allthingsnuclear.org/elyman/a-misguided-nuclear-reactor-project

23. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, accessed 20 May 2019, 'Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)', https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/ngnp.html

24. See Appendix 3 in: Australian environment groups and conservation councils, Sept 2019, Submission to the Federal Parliament's Standing Committee on Environment and Energy, 'Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia', https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019-Federal-Nuclear-Inqui...

25. See Appendix 2 in: Australian environment groups and conservation councils, Sept 2019, Submission to the Federal Parliament's Standing Committee on Environment and Energy, 'Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia', https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019-Federal-Nuclear-Inqui...

On China's program see also: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Rep...

26. Stephen Stapczynski and Emi Urabe, 1 June 2016, 'Japan's Nuclear Holy Grail Slips Away With Operator Elusive', http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-31/nuclear-holy-grail-sli...

27. W.E. Cummins, M.M. Corletti, T.L. Schulz / Westinghouse Electric Company, 2003, 'Westinghouse AP1000 Advanced Passive Plant', http://nuclearinfo.net/twiki/pub/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower/...

28. International Atomic Energy Agency, 28 July 2017, 'International Status and Prospects for Nuclear Power 2017: Report by the Director General', www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC61/GC61InfDocuments/English/gc61inf-8_en.pdf

In theory, integral fast reactors (IFRs) would gobble up nuclear waste and convert it into low-carbon electricity. In practice, the IFR R&D program in Idaho has left a legacy of troublesome waste. This saga is detailed in a recent article¹ and a longer report² by the Union of Concerned Scientists' senior scientist Ed Lyman.

Lyman notes that the IFR concept "has attracted numerous staunch advocates" but their "interest has been driven largely by idealized studies on paper and not by facts derived from actual experience."¹ He discusses the IFR prototype built at Idaho ‒ the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), which ceased operation in 1994 ‒ and subsequent efforts by the Department of Energy (DOE) to treat 26 metric tons of "sodium-bonded" metallic spent fuel from the EBR-II reactor with pyroprocessing, ostensibly to convert the waste to forms that would be safer for disposal in a geological repository. A secondary goal was to demonstrate the viability of pyroprocessing ‒ but the program has instead demonstrated the serious shortcomings of this technology.

Lyman writes:¹

"Pyroprocessing is a form of spent fuel reprocessing that dissolves metal-based spent fuel in a molten salt bath (as distinguished from conventional reprocessing, which dissolves spent fuel in water-based acid solutions). Understandably, given all its problems, DOE has been reluctant to release public information on this program, which has largely operated under the radar since 2000.

"The FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] documents we obtained have revealed yet another DOE tale of vast sums of public money being wasted on an unproven technology that has fallen far short of the unrealistic projections that DOE used to sell the project to Congress, the state of Idaho and the public. However, it is not too late to pull the plug on this program, and potentially save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. …

"Pyroprocessing was billed as a simpler, cheaper and more compact alternative to the conventional aqueous reprocessing plants that have been operated in France, the United Kingdom, Japan and other countries.

"Although DOE shut down the EBR-II in 1994 (the reactor part of the IFR program), it allowed work at the pyroprocessing facility to proceed. It justified this by asserting that the leftover spent fuel from the EBR-II could not be directly disposed of in the planned Yucca Mountain repository because of the potential safety issues associated with presence of metallic sodium in the spent fuel elements, which was used to "bond" the fuel to the metallic cladding that encased it. (Metallic sodium reacts violently with water and air.)

"Pyroprocessing would separate the sodium from other spent fuel constituents and neutralize it. DOE decided in 2000 to use pyroprocessing for the entire inventory of leftover EBR-II spent fuel – both "driver" and "blanket" fuel – even though it acknowledged that there were simpler methods to remove the sodium from the lightly irradiated blanket fuel, which constituted nearly 90% of the inventory.

"However, as the FOIA documents reveal in detail, the pyroprocessing technology simply has not worked well and has fallen far short of initial predictions. Although DOE initially claimed that the entire inventory would be processed by 2007, as of the end of Fiscal Year 2016, only about 15% of the roughly 26 metric tons of spent fuel had been processed. Over $210 million has been spent, at an average cost of over $60,000 per kilogram of fuel treated. At this rate, it will take until the end of the century to complete pyroprocessing of the entire inventory, at an additional cost of over $1 billion.

"But even that assumes, unrealistically, that the equipment will continue to be usable for this extended time period. Moreover, there is a significant fraction of spent fuel in storage that has degraded and may not be a candidate for pyroprocessing in any event. …

"What exactly is the pyroprocessing of this fuel accomplishing? Instead of making management and disposal of the spent fuel simpler and safer, it has created an even bigger mess. …

"[P]yroprocessing has taken one potentially difficult form of nuclear waste and converted it into multiple challenging forms of nuclear waste. DOE has spent hundreds of millions of dollars only to magnify, rather than simplify, the waste problem. This is especially outrageous in light of other FOIA documents that indicate that DOE never definitively concluded that the sodium-bonded spent fuel was unsafe to directly dispose of in the first place. But it insisted on pursuing pyroprocessing rather than conducting studies that might have shown it was unnecessary.

"Everyone with an interest in pyroprocessing should reassess their views given the real-world problems experienced in implementing the technology over the last 20 years at INL. They should also note that the variant of the process being used to treat the EBR-II spent fuel is less complex than the process that would be needed to extract plutonium and other actinides to produce fresh fuel for fast reactors. In other words, the technology is a long way from being demonstrated as a practical approach for electricity production."

References:

1. Ed Lyman / Union of Concerned Scientists, 12 Aug 2017, 'The Pyroprocessing Files', http://allthingsnuclear.org/elyman/the-pyroprocessing-files

2. Edwin Lyman, 2017, 'External Assessment of the U.S. Sodium-Bonded Spent Fuel Treatment Program', https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/nuclear-power/Pyroprocessing/IAEA...

We reported in Nuclear Monitor in October that Japan has abandoned plans to restart the ill-fated Monju fast reactor.¹ That decision calls into question the rationale for Japan's ongoing development of reprocessing (in particular the partially-built Rokkasho plant). In the absence of a fast-reactor rationale, the only use for plutonium separated at Rokkasho would be incorporation into mixed uranium‒plutonium MOX fuel (or, of course, incorporation into nuclear weapons). MOX fuel makes no sense since uranium is plentiful and cheaper than MOX fuel.

Hideyuki Ban, Co-Director of the Tokyo-based Citizens Nuclear Information Center, takes up this story in the latest edition of Nuke Info Tokyo:²

"On September 21, 2016, the Ministerial Committee on Nuclear Power, which consists of the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and other relevant cabinet members, adopted a policy entitled "Procedure for Future Fast Reactor Development." This policy included a drastic review of Monju, including its decommissioning, but the continued promotion of the nuclear fuel cycle. Based on the adoption of this policy, the Fast Reactor Development Committee has been established under the initiative of the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. The new policy states that the committee is scheduled to reach a conclusion on future development before the end of 2016.

"However, the decision to decommission Monju will not be overturned by the committee. This is because "The committee will not discuss whether Monju should be continued or discontinued" (Toshio Kodama, President of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency). Thus the committee has been set up and will conduct deliberations on the premise that Monju will be decommissioned.

"The specific actions the Ministerial Committee on Nuclear Power plans to promote for the nuclear fuel cycle are to restart the experimental reactor Jōyō and to cooperate with fast reactor development in France. The fast reactor Jōyō was first started in 1977, and was operated as a non-breeding reactor after its breeding function was evaluated. Its operation has been suspended since an accident occurred in 2008. It is currently under investigation for compatibility with the new regulatory standards.

"France plans to build a demonstration fast reactor named ASTRID (Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration). The cooperation between Japan and France began in 2014. ... The ASTRID project is still at the basic design stage and it has not yet been decided whether construction will go ahead or not. Koji Okamoto (Professor, Nuclear Professional School, University of Tokyo) who has been a strong advocate of nuclear energy in Japan, clearly states in an article contributed to Energy Review, a Japanese industrial monthly, that the ASTRID project is close to coming off the tracks.

"The new Japanese governmental policy states that one purpose of the ASTRID development is to lower the toxicity of radioactive wastes. However, a study (called the OMEGA Project) to reduce the toxicity of radioactive wastes has been ongoing for more than 30 years in Japan, resulting in no practical achievements. Presenting a new aim does not necessarily mean that practical achievements have become more obtainable.

"The construction cost of ASTRID is estimated to be 570 billion yen, of which Japan has been asked to provide 290 billion yen, according to a media report. However, the construction cost is considered likely to increase, and if Japan continues to cooperate, it is certain that the cost shouldered by Japan will increase each time construction budgets are reviewed.

"Even if cooperation with the French project results in some achievements, Japan has no way of taking advantage of them. After the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPS accident, the demonstration reactor project that would follow Monju has been shelved, and has, in fact, been returned to the drawing board, with even the site for construction as yet undetermined. Under such circumstances, it is unimaginable for an area of this country to accept the construction of a fast reactor, which is far more dangerous than a light-water reactor. If a fast reactor cannot be built, the achievements of the cooperation with France cannot be used. Japan's nuclear fuel cycle policy will, it seems, fade away in the not-too-distant future."

Commitment to reprocessing

Yet while the prospects for the development of fast reactor technology in Japan are bleak, there is no sign of any weakening of the commitment to complete and operate the Rokkasho reprocessing plant. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) established the Nuclear Reprocessing Organization (NRO) on 3 October 2016 to pursue reprocessing under the Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Implementation Act, which was approved on 11 May 2016. The NRO's operations are entrusted to Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd., funded by obligatory contributions from each electric power utility.³

Perhaps this financial burden imposed on the power utilities will help to slowly unravel the so-far rock-solid commitment to reprocessing.

Abandoning Rokkasho would mean giving up on the sunk costs ‒ the estimated total cost is ¥2.2 trillion (US$18.6 bn; €17.8 bn) and much of that has already been spent ‒ but continuing with Rokkasho means wasting billions more dollars.

If Rokkasho is abandoned, MOX fuel will sooner or later be abandoned. That said, if for some unfathomable reason Tokyo was determined to pursue the use of MOX fuel, existing plutonium stockpiles could be used to produce MOX fuel far into the future ‒ all the more so since it's unlikely that any more than a handful of reactors will be MOX-fuelled in the foreseeable future (of the 26 reactors either approved and under review for restart by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, only five use MOX fuel).

If fast reactors and reprocessing are abandoned, spent nuclear fuel will be managed as waste ‒ it will be destined for deep underground disposal.

International conference

Given the fluid nature of Japan's policies on fast-reactor R&D ‒ and the potential to unravel the government's illogical commitments to reprocessing and MOX ‒ the Citizens Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) and the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists are jointly organizing an international conference on 23-24 February next year at the United Nations University, Tokyo.⁴

The conference will focus on Japan's plutonium policy and the US-Japan 123 Agreement, which provides the basis for Japan's reprocessing program. The present Agreement came into effect in 1988 and is valid for 30 years. Thus it is due to expire in 2018. The Agreement is subject to automatic renewal unless either party notifies that it would like to negotiate changes. While it is likely that the Agreement will be automatically renewed in 2018, CNIC is planning to use this opportunity to draw attention to the serious problems with Japan's nuclear fuel cycle policy and the growing plutonium stockpile.

Issues to be considered at the conference include the international repercussions ‒ how do countries in the region react to Japan's massive stockpile of plutonium? How do they see the planned Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, which will produce a further eight tons of plutonium per year? What is the real stance of the US on Japan's plutonium policy?

Organizers plan to include speakers from South Korea, China and Taiwan as well as several US experts. Japanese experts and government officials, both bureaucrats and members of parliament, will be invited to speak, as will speakers from local communities in Aomori Prefecture, host of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant.

Vitrified high-level nuclear waste shipments

One of the problematic aspects of Japan's nuclear fuel cycle policies has been the many shipments of spent fuel, MOX, separated plutonium and high-level nuclear waste between Europe (France and the UK) and Japan. These shipments are slowly coming to an end.

The Pacific Grebe, laden with 132 canisters of vitrified high-level waste (HLW) being returned from the UK, arrived on October 20 at Japan Nuclear Fuel, Ltd.'s High-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Center in Rokkasho-mura.⁵

From 1969-90 there were more than 160 shipments of spent fuel from Japan to Europe.⁶ The first shipment of vitrified HLW from France to Japan took place in 1995 and the final shipment was in 2007 ‒ in total, 1,310 HLW canisters were transported. Shipment of vitrified HLW from the UK to Japan commenced early in 2010 and will require about 11 shipments over 8‒10 years to move about 900 canisters. To date, 520 canisters have been sent to Japan from the UK.

References:

1. 5 Oct 2016, 'The slow death of fast reactors', Nuclear Monitor #831, www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/831/nuclear-monitor-831

2. Hideyuki Ban, 5 Dec 2016, 'Planned Monju Decommissioning ‒ The Changed Future of Japan's Nuclear Fuel Cycle', Nuke Info Tokyo No. 175 (Nov/Dec 2016), www.cnic.jp/english/?p=3623

3. CNIC, 5 Dec 2016, 'Nuclear Reprocessing Organization Inaugurated', www.cnic.jp/english/?p=3630

4. CNIC, 5 Dec 2016, 'International Conference on US-Japan Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and Japan's Plutonium Policy 2017', www.cnic.jp/english/?p=3618

5. CNIC, 5 Dec 2016, 'Vitrified HLW Returning from UK Arrives in Japan', www.cnic.jp/english/?p=3627

6. World Nuclear Association, Nov 2016, 'Japanese Waste and MOX Shipments From Europe', www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/transport-o...

Fast neutron reactors are "poised to become mainstream" according to the World Nuclear Association.¹ The Association lists eight "current" fast reactors although three of them ‒ India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, and the Joyo and Monju reactors in Japan ‒ are not operating. That leaves just five fast reactors, three of them experimental.

Nuclear physicist Thomas Cochran summarizes the unhappy history of fast reactors: "Fast reactor development programs failed in the: 1) United States; 2) France; 3) United Kingdom; 4) Germany; 5) Japan; 6) Italy; 7) Soviet Union/Russia 8) U.S. Navy and 9) the Soviet Navy. The program in India is showing no signs of success and the program in China is only at a very early stage of development."²

The latest setback was the decision of the Japanese government at an extraordinary Cabinet meeting on September 21 to abandon plans to restart the Monju fast breeder reactor.³ A formal announcement of the decision is likely to be made by the end of the year, government officials said.⁴ After the Cabinet meeting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government will set up an expert panel that will "carry out an overall revision of the Monju project, including its decommissioning" by the end of this year.³

Monju won't be missed. The Japan Times reported: "Monju not only absorbed fistfuls of taxpayer money, but also suffered repeated accidents and mismanagement while only going live for a few months during its three-decade existence."³

Likewise, the Mainichi Japan editorialized on June 6: "Many other rich industrialized nations have given up on fast-breeder reactor development because of its technical and cost hurdles. The fuel cycle project is effectively broken beyond repair. ... It's time for the government to decide, not on how Monju will continue, but on how it will be shut down for good."⁵

Monju reached criticality in 1994 but was shut down in December 1995 after a sodium coolant leak and fire. The reactor didn't restart until May 2010, and it was shut down again three months later after a fuel handling machine was accidentally dropped in the reactor during a refuelling outage. In November 2012, it was revealed that Japan Atomic Energy Agency had failed to conduct regular inspections of almost 10,000 out of a total 39,000 pieces of equipment at Monju, including safety-critical equipment.

In November 2015, the Nuclear Regulation Authority declared that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency was "not qualified as an entity to safely operate" Monju. Education minister Hirokazu Matsuno said on 21 September 2016 that attempts to find an alternative operator have been unsuccessful.³

On 15 August 2016, less than a week before the extraordinary Cabinet meeting, the Nuclear Regulation Authority rejected a request to lift a ban on operating Monju, imposed in 2013 after the revelation that safety inspections of thousands of components had not been carried out.⁶

The government has already spent 1.2 trillion yen (US$12bn; €10.8bn) on Monju.⁷ The government calculated that it would cost another 600 billion yen (US$6bn; €5.3bn) to restart Monju and keep it operating for another 10 years.⁷ Offline maintenance costs amount to around 20 billion yen a year (US$200m; €177m).^4,7

Decommissioning also has a hefty price-tag ‒ far more than for conventional light-water reactors. According to a 2012 estimate by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, decommissioning Monju will cost an estimated 300 billion yen (US$3bn; €2.7bn), comprising 130 billion yen to dismantle the facility, 20 billion yen to remove spent nuclear fuel, and 150 billion yen for maintenance and management costs such as electricity and labor.⁸

Reprocessing in Japan

Logically, the decision to scrap Monju should be followed by a decision to scrap the partially-built Rokkasho reprocessing plant. Providing plutonium fuel to Monju ‒ and, in time, other fast reactors ‒ was one of the main justifications for Rokkasho. Moreover, Japan already has an astronomical stockpile of 48 tonnes of separated plutonium from the reprocessing of Japanese spent fuel in European reprocessing plants. Rokkasho would result in an additional 8‒9 tonnes of separated plutonium annually.

But the government seems determined to proceed with Rokkasho, which is due to start up in 2018. The reprocessing plant's scheduled completion in 1997 has been delayed by more than 20 times due to a series of technical glitches and other problems, and its construction cost is now estimated at 2.2 trillion yen (US$22bn; €19.5bn) ‒ three times the original cost estimate.⁹

How to justify continuing with Rokkasho without a fast breeder program? The Japanese government says that it will continue research and development into fast breeder reactors. At the extraordinary Cabinet meeting on September 21, the government decided to commission a road map for developing "demonstration fast reactors" by the end of the year.³ One option is to attempt to restart the Joyo experimental fast reactor in Ibaraki Prefecture (shut down since 2007 due to damage to some core components ‒ the World Nuclear Association says its future is "uncertain"¹), or Japan may pursue joint research with France (specifically, France's plans to develop a demonstration fast reactor called ASTRID).^3,10

Operating a massive reprocessing plant in support of a small, experimental fast reactor program makes no sense, especially given the existing plutonium stockpile. Another rationale for Rokkasho ‒ separating plutonium to be incorporated into MOX fuel for light-water reactors ‒ is just as illogical. Only one operating reactor ‒ Ikata 3 in Ehime Prefecture ‒ uses MOX fuel.

Perhaps sense will prevail and Japan will abandon both fast reactors and reprocessing ‒ but that isn't seen as a likely outcome. Masafumi Takubo and Frank von Hippel noted in a recent article:¹¹

"According to a 2011 estimate by Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, operating the RRP [Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant] will cost about ¥200 billion (~US$2 billion) per year to produce plutonium with a fuel value that is less than the cost of fabricating it into fuel. The economics of reprocessing in France are similarly irrational. One therefore needs to find other explanations than those stated for the persistence of reprocessing in France and Japan. Partial explanations include:

• The thousands of jobs and government subsidies to local and regional governments associated with reprocessing and related facilities have become important to the rural areas where they are located;
• Abandoning the pursuit of a plutonium economy would be seen by elite nuclear technocrats as an admission that they had wasted the equivalents of tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars;
• Reprocessing is government policy and therefore not responsive to market economics; and
• In Japan, some see its reprocessing capability as providing a virtual nuclear deterrent."

India's failed fast reactor program

India's fast reactor program has been a failure. The budget for the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) was approved in 1971 but the reactor was delayed repeatedly, attaining first criticality in 1985. It took until 1997 for the FBTR to start supplying a small amount of electricity to the grid. The FBTR's operations have been marred by several accidents.¹²

Preliminary design work for a larger Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) began in 1985, expenditures on the reactor began in 1987/88 and construction began in 2004 ‒ but the reactor still hasn't started up. Construction has taken more than twice the expected period.¹² In July 2016, the Indian government announced yet another delay, and there is scepticism that the scheduled start-up in March 2017 will be realized. The PFBR's cost estimate has gone up by 62%.¹³

India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has for decades projected the construction of hundreds of fast reactors ‒ for example a 2004 DAE document projected 262.5 gigawatts (GW) of fast reactor capacity by 2050. But India has a track record of making absurd projections for both fast reactors and light-water reactors ‒ and failing to meet those targets by orders of magnitude.¹²

Academic M.V. Ramana writes: "Breeder reactors have always underpinned the DAE's claims about generating large quantities of electricity. Today, more than six decades after the grand plans for growth were first announced, that promise is yet to be fulfilled. The latest announcement about the delay in the PFBR is yet another reminder that breeder reactors in India, like elsewhere, are best regarded as a failed technology and that it is time to give up on them."¹²

Russia's snail-paced program

Three fast reactors are in operation in Russia ‒ BOR-60 (start-up in 1969), BN-600 (1980) and BN-800 (2014).¹ There have been 27 sodium leaks in the BN-600 reactor, five of them in systems with radioactive sodium, and 14 leaks were accompanied by burning of sodium.¹⁴

The Russian government published a decree in August 2016 outlining plans to build 11 new reactors over the next 14 years. Of the 11 proposed new reactors, three are fast reactors: BREST-300 near Tomsk in Siberia, and two BN-1200 fast reactors near Ekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, near the Ural mountains.¹⁵ However, like India, the Russian government has a track record of projecting rapid and substantial nuclear power expansion ‒ and failing miserably to meet the targets.¹⁵

As Vladimir Slivyak recently noted in Nuclear Monitor: "While Russian plans looks big on paper, it's unlikely that this program will be implemented. It's very likely that the current economic crisis, the deepest in history since the USSR collapsed, will axe the most of new reactors."

While the August 2016 decree signals new interest in reviving the BN-1200 reactor project, it was indefinitely suspended in 2014, with Rosatom citing the need to improve fuel for the reactor and amid speculation about the cost-effectiveness of the project.¹⁶

In 2014, Rosenergoatom spokesperson Andrey Timonov said the BN-800 reactor, which started up in 2014, "must answer questions about the economic viability of potential fast reactors because at the moment 'fast' technology essentially loses this indicator [when compared with] commercial VVER units."¹⁶

Russian plans in the 1980's to construct five BN-800s in the Ural region failed to materialize and, as the International Panel on Fissile Materials noted last December, plans to scale up fast reactor deployment to 14 GW by 2030 and 34 GW by 2050 do not seem realistic.¹⁷

OKBM − the Rosatom subsidiary that designed the BN-1200 reactor − previously anticipated that the first BN-1200 reactor would be commissioned in 2020, followed by eight more by 2030.¹⁸ The projection of nine BN-1200 reactors operating by 2030 was fanciful, and the latest plan for three new fast reactors by 2030 will not be realized either.

The BREST-300 fast reactor project is stretching Rosatom's funds. Bellona's Alexander Nikitin said in 2014 that Rosatom's "Breakthrough" program to develop BREST-300 was only breaking Rosatom's piggy-bank.¹⁹

China's program going nowhere fast

Australian nuclear lobbyist Geoff Russell cites²⁰ the World Nuclear Association (WNA)²¹ in support of his claim that the Chinese expect fast reactors "to be dominating the market by about 2030 and they'll be mass produced."

Does the WNA reference support the claim? Not at all. China has a 20 MWe experimental fast reactor, which operated for a total of less than one month in the 63 months from criticality in July 2010 to October 2015.²¹ For every hour the reactor operated in 2015, it was offline for five hours, and there were three recorded reactor trips.²²

China also has plans to build a 600 MWe 'Demonstration Fast Reactor' and then a 1,000 MWe commercial-scale fast reactor.²¹ Whether the 600 MWe and 1,000 MWe reactors will be built remains uncertain ‒ the projects have not been approved ‒ and it would be another giant leap from a single commercial-scale fast reactor to a fleet of them.

According to the WNA, a decision to proceed with or cancel the 1,000 MW fast reactor will not be made until 2020, and if it proceeds, construction could begin in 2028 and operation could begin in about 2034.²³

So China might have one commercial-scale fast reactor by 2034 ‒ but probably won't. Clearly Russell's claim that fast reactors will be "dominating the market by about 2030" is asinine hogwash.

According to the WNA, China envisages 40 GW of fast reactor capacity by 2050. A far more likely scenario is that China will have 0 GW of fast reactor capacity by 2050. And even if the 40 GW target was reached, it would still only represent around one-sixth of total nuclear capacity in China in 2050²³ ‒ fast reactors still wouldn't be "dominating the market" even if the fanciful projections are realized.

Perhaps the travelling-wave fast reactor popularized by Bill Gates will come to the rescue? Or perhaps not. According to the WNA, China General Nuclear Power and Xiamen University are reported to be cooperating on R&D, but the Ministry of Science and Technology, China National Nuclear Corporation, and the State Nuclear Power Technology Company are all skeptical of the travelling-wave reactor concept.²³

Perhaps the 'integral fast reactor' (IFR) championed by James Hansen will come to the rescue? Or perhaps not. The UK and US governments have been considering building IFRs (specifically GE Hitachi's 'PRISM' design) for plutonium disposition ‒ but it is almost certain that both countries will choose different methods to manage plutonium stockpiles.²⁴

In South Australia, nuclear lobbyists united behind a push for IFRs/PRISMs, and they would have expected to persuade a stridently pro-nuclear Royal Commission to endorse their ideas. But the Royal Commission completely rejected the proposal, noting in its May 2016 report that advanced fast reactors are unlikely to be feasible or viable in the foreseeable future; that the development of such a first-of-a-kind project would have high commercial and technical risk; that there is no licensed, commercially proven design and development to that point would require substantial capital investment; and that electricity generated from such reactors has not been demonstrated to be cost competitive with current light water reactor designs.²⁵

A future for fast reactors?

Just 400 reactor-years of worldwide experience have been gained with fast reactors.¹ There is 42 times more experience with conventional reactors (16,850 reactor-years²⁶). And most of the experience with fast reactors suggests they are more trouble than they are worth.

Apart from the countries mentioned above, there is very little interest in pursuing fast reactor technology. Germany, the UK and the US cancelled their prototype breeder reactors in the 1980s and 1990s.²⁷

France is considering building a fast reactor (ASTRID) despite the country's unhappy experience with the Phénix and Superphénix reactors. But a decision on whether to construct ASTRID will not be made until 2019/20.^28,29

The performance of the Superphénix reactor was as dismal as Monju. Superphénix was meant to be the world's first commercial fast reactor but in the 13 years of its miserable existence it rarely operated ‒ its 'Energy Unavailability Factor' was 90.8% according to the IAEA.³⁰

A 2010 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists neatly summarized the worldwide failure of fast reactor technology:³¹

"After six decades and the expenditure of the equivalent of about $100 billion, the promise of breeder reactors remains largely unfulfilled. ... The breeder reactor dream is not dead, but it has receded far into the future. In the 1970s, breeder advocates were predicting that the world would have thousands of breeder reactors operating this decade. Today, they are predicting commercialization by approximately 2050. In the meantime, the world has to deal with the hundreds of tons of separated weapons-usable plutonium that are the legacy of the breeder dream and more being separated each year by Britain, France, India, Japan, and Russia.

"In 1956, U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover summarized his experience with a sodium cooled reactor that powered early U.S. nuclear submarines by saying that such reactors are "expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair." More than 50 years later, this summary remains apt."

Allison MacFarlane, former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, recently made this sarcastic assessment of fast reactor technology: "These turn out to be very expensive technologies to build. Many countries have tried over and over. What is truly impressive is that these many governments continue to fund a demonstrably failed technology."³²

While fast reactors face a bleak future, the rhetoric will persist. Australian academic Barry Brook wrote a puff-piece about fast reactors for the Murdoch press in 2009.³³ On the same day he said on his website that "although it's not made abundantly clear in the article", he expects conventional reactors to play the major role for the next two to three decades but chose to emphasise fast reactors "to try to hook the fresh fish".

So that's the game plan for nuclear lobbyists − making overblown claims about fast reactors and other Generation IV reactor concepts, pretending that they are near-term prospects, and being less than "abundantly clear" about the truth.

References:

1. World Nuclear Association, Sept 2016, 'Fast Neutron Reactors', www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/...

2. International Panel on Fissile Materials, 17 Feb 2010, 'History and status of fast breeder reactor programs worldwide', http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2010/02/history_and_status_of_fas.html

3. Reiji Yoshida, 21 Sept 2016, 'Japan to scrap troubled ¥1 trillion Monju fast-breeder reactor', www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/21/national/japans-cabinet-hold-meetin...

4. Jack Loughran, 21 Sept 2016, 'Costly Japanese prototype nuclear reactor shuts down', http://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2016/09/costly-japanese-prototy...

5. Mainichi Japan, 6 June 2016, 'Editorial: Time to permanently shut down Monju nuclear reactor', http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160606/p2a/00m/0na/018000c

6. 19 Aug 2016, 'Nuclear Regulators Keep Ban On Monju Reactor', www.japanbullet.com/news/nuclear-regulators-keep-ban-on-monju-reactor

7. Mainichi Japan, 29 Aug 2016, 'Running Monju reactor for 10 years would cost gov't 600 billion yen extra', http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160829/p2a/00m/0na/017000c

8. Mainichi Japan, 16 Feb 2016, 'Decommissioning of troubled fast-breeder reactor Monju would cost 300 billion yen', http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160216/p2a/00m/0na/005000c

9. 4 Sept 2016, 'Monju and the nuclear fuel cycle', www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/09/04/editorials/monju-nuclear-fuel-cy...

10. 13 Sept 2016, 'Japan on verge of scrapping Monju fast-breeder reactor: sources', www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/13/national/japan-verge-scrapping-monj...

11. Masafumi Takubo and Frank von Hippel, 1 Sept. 2016, 'Future of Japan's Monju plutonium breeder reactor under review', http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2016/09/future_of_japans_monju_pl.html

12. M.V. Ramana, 16 Aug 2016, 'Fast breeder reactors and the slow progress of India's nuclear programme', www.ideasforindia.in/article.aspx?article_id=1677
13. Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al., 2016, World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016, www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/20160713MSC-WNISR2016V2-HR.pdf

14. Vladimir Slivyak, December 2014, 'Russian Nuclear Industry Overview', http://earthlife.org.za/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/russian-nuc-ind-o...

15. WNN, 10 Aug 2016, 'Russia to build 11 new nuclear reactors by 2030', www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Russia-to-build-11-new-nuclear-reactors-by...

16. World Nuclear News, 16 April 2015, 'Russia postpones BN-1200 in order to improve fuel design', www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russia-postpones-BN-1200-in-order-to-impro...

17. Shaun Burnie, 15 Dec 2015, 'Russian BN-800 fast breeder reactor connected to grid', http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2015/12/russian_bn-800_fast_breed.html

18. www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-O-S/Russia--Nuclea...

19. Alexander Nikitin, 5 May 2015, 'In a perpetual search for perpetuum mobile', http://bellona.org/news/uncategorized/2015-05-perpetual-search-perpetuum...

20. https://bravenewclimate.com/2015/06/18/complaint-about-misleading-helen-...

21. www.world-nuclear.org/info/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china--nuclear...

22. Zhang Donghui / China Institute of Atomic Energy, 2016, 'Nuclear energy and Fast Reactor development in China', www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2016/2016-05-16-05-20-NP...

23. www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f...

24. Jim Green, 9 Sept 2015, 'Diminishing prospects for MOX and integral fast reactors', Nuclear Monitor #810, www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/810/diminishing-prospects-mox-...

25. Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, Final Report, 2016, http://yoursay.sa.gov.au/system/NFCRC_Final_Report_Web.pdf

26. www.iaea.org/pris/

27. Thomas B. Cochran et al., 2010, 'Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status', http://fissilematerials.org/library/rr08.pdf

28. www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2015/2015-05-25-05-29-NP...

29. www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2014/05/16/france-plans-introduction-of-comm...

30. www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=178

31. Thomas Cochran et al., May/June 2010, 'It's time to give up on breeder reactors', http://ipfmlibrary.org/Breeders_BAS_May_June_2010.pdf

32. Stephen Stapczynski and Emi Urabe, 1 June 2016, 'Japan's Nuclear Holy Grail Slips Away With Operator Elusive', http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-O7Q3JD6JIJV801-5DS75Q6VPR...

33. http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/12/04/clean-future-in-nuclear-power/

NM815.4516 In the last decade or so, many people who would likely identify themselves as environmentalists have turned to nuclear power as a way to deal with climate change. Among them are James Lovelock, Patrick Moore, James Hansen, and George Monbiot. Of these, Hansen has to be, and in some circles has been, taken most seriously. He is, after all, arguably the scientist who has done the most for raising concerns about climate change. What is also notable about Hansen is that he argues not just for any kind of nuclear power, but one based on a specific kind of a reactor − a fast reactor.

Climate change is such an important threat to our planet that it is quite justified to assess whether nuclear power should be deployed to a much larger extent as a way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This article does not − deliberately − address that question in general, but focuses on whether fast reactors could play a significant role in such a strategy. I argue below that because of the multiple problems with such reactors, relying on fast reactors to combat climate change is misguided.

In his book, Storms of my Grandchildren, Hansen explains the details of the reactor and how he came to believe in the potential of this reactor system:

"When asked about nuclear power, I am usually noncommittal, rattling off pros and cons. However, there is an aspect of the nuclear story that deserves much greater public attention. I first learned about it in 2008, when I read an early copy of Prescription for the Planet, by Tom Blees, who had stumbled onto a secret story with enormous ramifications − a story that he delved into by continually badgering some of the top nuclear scientists in the world until he was able to tell it with a clarity that escapes technical experts. I have since dug into the topic a bit more and observed how politicians and others reacted to Blees' information, and the story has begun to make me slightly angry − which is difficult to do, as my basic nature is very placid, even comfortably stolid.

"Today's nuclear power plants are "thermal" reactors, so-called because the neutrons released in the fission of uranium fuel are slowed down by a moderating material. The moderating material used in today's commercial reactors is either normal water ("light water") or "heavy water," which contains a high proportion of deuterium, the isotope of water in which the hydrogen contains an extra neutron. Slow neutrons are better able to split more of the uranium atoms, that is, to keep nuclear reactions going, burning" more of the uranium fuel.

"The nuclear fission releases energy that is used to drive a turbine, creating electricity. It's a nice, simple way to get energy out of uranium. However, there are problems with today's thermal nuclear reactors (most of which are light-water reactors). The main problem is the nuclear waste, which contains both fission fragments and transuranic actinides. The fission fragments, which are chemical elements in the middle of the periodic table, have a half-life of typically thirty years. Transuranic actinides, elements from plutonium to nobelium that are created by absorption of neutrons, pose the main difficulty. These transuranic elements are radioactive materials with a lifetime of about ten thousand years. So we have to babysit the stuff for ten thousand years − what a nuisance that is!

"Along with our having to babysit the nuclear waste, another big problem with thermal reactors is that both light-water and heavy-water reactors extract less than 1 percent of the energy in the original uranium.

"Most of the energy is left in the nuclear waste produced by thermal reactors. (In the case of light-water reactors, most of the energy is left in "depleted-uranium tailings" produced during uranium "enrichment"; heavy-water reactors can burn natural uranium, without enrichment and thus without a pile of depleted-uranium tailings, but they still use less than 1 percent of the uranium's energy.) So nuclear waste is a tremendous waste in more ways than one.

"These nuclear waste problems are the biggest drawback of nuclear power. Unnecessarily so. Nuclear experts at the premier research laboratories have long realized that there is a solution to the waste problems, and the solution can be designed with some very attractive features.

"I am referring to "fast" nuclear reactors. Fast reactors allow the neutrons to move at higher speed. The result in a fast nuclear reactor is that the reactions "burn" not only the uranium fuel but also all of the transuranic actinides − which form the long-lived waste that causes us so much heartburn. Fast reactors can burn about 99 percent of the uranium that is mined, compared with the less than 1 percent extracted by light-water reactors. So fast reactors increase the efficiency of fuel use by a factor of one hundred or more.

"Fast reactors also produce nuclear waste, but in volumes much less than slow (thermal) reactors. More important, the radioactivity becomes inconsequential in a few hundred years, rather than ten thousand years."

All of this description clearly suggests that Hansen thinks of fast reactors as a good, if not perfect, solution. Elsewhere he has expanded on the various other virtues of fast reactors. What Hansen does not talk about, however, are the various problems with fast reactors. And we have about six decades of experience with those problems.

Hansen actually does refer to the long history of fast reactors in his book, saying:

"The concept for fast-reactor technology was defined by Enrico Fermi, one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century and a principal in the Manhattan Project, and his colleagues at the University of Chicago in the 1940s. By the mid-1960s, the nuclear scientists at Argonne National Laboratory had demonstrated the feasibility of the concept."

The demonstration of the feasibility of fast reactors actually goes back to the early 1950s, with the Experimental Breeder Reactor constructed in Idaho in the United States. The term breeder is significant. It refers to the fact that in some fast reactors, those neutrons that are escaping the core are captured by a blanket made of "fertile materials", which then eventually get transformed into a new element that is itself fissile, i.e. can be used as a fuel in a reactor core. An example of such a fertile material is uranium-238, which gets converted into a fissile isotope of plutonium, plutonium-239. Uranium-238 is the most common isotope of uranium, constituting about 99.3 percent of naturally available uranium. It is this process of conversion of uranium-238 into plutonium-239 that makes a fast reactor utilize uranium much more efficiently.

If the fast reactor is designed suitably, it could produce more fissile material in its blankets than is consumed in its core. It is then said to "breed" plutonium and these reactors are called breeder reactors. The long-standing attraction of breeder reactors for nuclear power proponents is that when nuclear power was first developed, uranium was thought to be scarce and there was widespread concern that global resources would be insufficient to support the anticipated large expansion of nuclear power. This is why the United States started constructing the EBR-I so early into its nuclear power program.

Nuclear meltdowns

Indeed, on December 20, 1951, EBR-I became the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plant when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs. On June 4, 1953, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced that EBR-I had become the world's first reactor to demonstrate the breeding of plutonium from uranium. About two years later, on November 29, 1955, the reactor had a partial core meltdown, not something that Hansen appears to talk about in any detail.

A decade later, in October 1966, it was the turn of Fermi-1 (yes, named after the famous physicist), a demonstration fast breeder reactor located in Lagoona Beach, Michigan, which suffered a partial core meltdown. What is more interesting is the cause of the accident. Pieces of zirconium from the "core catcher", a safety system that is supposed to prevent molten fuel from liquid sodium into a part of the core, leading to those fuel elements melting down because they could not be cooled. The implication; additional safety features, could, under some circumstances, end up causing accidents in unexpected ways.

These meltdowns also have a different cause that has to do with operating a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons. In fast reactors, when fuel starts melting locally and coming closer together, it increases the rate at which the chain reaction occurs. If this process were not stopped extremely fast − for example, by the insertion of control rods that absorb neutrons − the runaway reaction would cause the pressure inside the core to rise fast enough to lead to an explosion. Again, it was an illustrious physicist, Hans Bethe, who pointed out this possibility back in 1956. Such an explosion could fracture the protective barriers around the core, including the containment building, and release large fractions of the radioactive material in the reactor into the surroundings. This so-called "core disassembly accident" has therefore been a longstanding safety concern with fast reactors.

A second difference between breeder reactors and the more common thermal reactors is their choice of coolant. Because breeder reactors do not have any moderator to slow down neutrons, their cores, where most of the fissions, and thus energy production, occur are smaller in size as compared to thermal reactors. Thus, their power density will be much higher. Efficient transfer of this heat requires the use of liquid metals rather than the more commonly utilized water. The coolant that has been used in all demonstration breeder reactors to date is a liquid metal that melts at relatively low temperatures − sodium.

Though sodium has some safety advantages, it reacts violently with water and burns if exposed to air. This makes fast reactors susceptible to serious fires. Almost all fast reactors constructed around the world have experienced one or more sodium leaks, likely because of chemical interactions between sodium and the stainless steel used in various components of the reactor. Finally, since sodium is opaque, fast reactors are notoriously difficult to maintain and susceptible to long shutdowns.

The question of costs

Having to deal with all these properties and safety concerns naturally drives up the construction costs of fast reactors, to the point that they are significantly more expensive than the more common thermal reactors that Hansen talks about. In addition, they also operate with less reliability. Economically, therefore, fast reactors have proved to be uncompetitive with current generation thermal reactors.

This is the main reason that decades after breeder reactors were piloted, no country has successfully built a commercial breeder reactor. France, the country that is most reliant on nuclear power in the world, did try. The Superphenix started operating in 1986, experienced a series of accidents, and was shut down in 1997. During this period, it generated less then 7% of the electricity of what it could have done at full capacity. Currently, only a few demonstration reactors are being built or operated, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor that is being constructed in Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu being one such reactor. This result is not for want of trying; just the OECD countries, between themselves, have spent about US$50 billion (in 2007 dollars) on breeder reactor research and development and on demonstration breeder reactor projects.

In today's electricity markets, with nuclear power rapidly losing ground to cheaper
renewables, the idea that fast reactors would establish an economically viable path forward for nuclear power is far-fetched, to say the least. Hansen's advocacy of fast reactors therefore seems a little at odds with current economic realities.

What of nuclear waste?

What of the other argument Hansen makes; about the ability of fast reactors to deal with the nuclear waste problem. Here again, what is not mentioned is as important, if not more important, than what is said. First, actinides are not the only long-lived radioactive materials produced in a nuclear reactor. There is also what is called fission products, some of which have a very long radioactive half-life; Technetium-99, for example, has a half-life of 200,000 years.

Second, there are so many actinides and they have a variety of nuclear reactions that are trying to "transmute" (i.e., convert) them into elements that have shorter lifetimes, or even radioactively stable elements, requires an elaborate strategy involving the reprocessing of spent fuel, multiple rounds of special fuel fabrication, and irradiation in fast reactors. In 1996, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences examined the potential benefits of such a scheme and concluded: "none of the dose reductions seems large enough to warrant the expense and additional operational risk of transmutation".

Third, just in the process of doing this transmutation, a large quantity of radioactive materials that are currently held within the spent fuel from nuclear reactors will be released into the biosphere in the form of liquid or gaseous wastes. This is what happens at all reprocessing plants and estimates of the radiation dose to populations around the world from just the gaseous fission products routinely released by reprocessing plants suggest that these exceed the doses from future leakage from geological repositories.

To conclude, James Hansen's advocacy of a nuclear solution to climate change based on fast reactors is misplaced. The six decades of global experience with breeder reactors shows that they are very problematic, much more so than nuclear power in general. So any strategy based on rapid construction of these untested technologies is very likely to suffer from setbacks. There is simply not enough time for us to go down these blind alleys.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report on the status of small modular reactors (SMRs) and other new reactor concepts in the US.

Let's begin with the downbeat conclusion of the GAO report:

"While light water SMRs and advanced reactors may provide some benefits, their development and deployment face a number of challenges. Both SMRs and advanced reactors require additional technical and engineering work to demonstrate reactor safety and economics, although light water SMRs generally face fewer technical challenges than advanced reactors because of their similarities to the existing large LWR [light water] reactors. Depending on how they are resolved, these technical challenges may result in higher-cost reactors than anticipated, making them less competitive with large LWRs or power plants using other fuels. ...

"Both light water SMRs and advanced reactors face additional challenges related to the time, cost, and uncertainty associated with developing, certifying or licensing, and deploying new reactor technology, with advanced reactor designs generally facing greater challenges than light water SMR designs. It is a multi-decade process, with costs up to $1 billion to $2 billion, to design and certify or license the reactor design, and there is an additional construction cost of several billion dollars more per power plant.

"Furthermore, the licensing process can have uncertainties associated with it, particularly for advanced reactor designs. A reactor designer would need to obtain investors or otherwise commit to this development cost years in advance of when the reactor design would be certified or available for licensing and construction, making demand (and customers) for the reactor uncertain. For example, the price of competing power production facilities may make a nuclear plant unattractive without favorable rates set by a public authority or long term prior purchase agreements, and accidents such as Fukushima as well as the ongoing need for a long-term solution for spent nuclear fuel may affect the public perception of reactor safety. These challenges will need to be addressed if the capabilities and diversification of energy sources that light water SMRs and advanced reactors can provide are to be realized."

Many of the same reasons explain the failure of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant Project. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the US Department of Energy (DoE) was to deploy a prototype 'next generation' reactor using advanced technology to generate electricity, produce hydrogen, or both, by the end of fiscal year 2021. However, in 2011, DoE decided not to proceed with the deployment phase of the project.

Small modular reactors

Four companies have considered developing SMRs in the US in recent years. NuScale has a cost-sharing agreement such that the DoE will pay as much as half of NuScale's costs − up to $217 million (€194m) over five years − for SMR design certification. NuScale expects to submit a design certification application to NRC in late 2016, and may begin operating its first SMR in 2023 or 2024. (However the timeframe is unrealistic, and the project may be abandoned − as other SMR projects have.)

The other three companies are a long way behind NuScale:

• mPower, a subsidiary of Babcock & Wilcox, enjoyed a cost-sharing agreement with the DoE but in 2014 scaled back its R&D efforts because of a lack of committed customers and a lack of investors.
• Holtec says it is continuing R&D work, but does not have a detailed schedule.
• In 2014 Westinghouse suspended its efforts to certify its SMR design, because of a lack of committed customers (and the lack of a DoE cost-sharing agreement).

The GAO report states that the development of light water SMRs may proceed without serious difficulties as they are based on existing light water reactor technology. That said, standardization is a key pillar of SMR rhetoric, and members of an expert group convened by the GAO noted that component standardization has proven challenging for the construction of the larger Westinghouse AP1000 that has some modular components.

Another pillar of SMR rhetoric is mass production (to make them economic), and the development of a massive construction chain to allow for mass production is a radically different proposition to NuScale's plan to build just one reactor over the next decade.

Not-so-advanced reactor concepts

According to the GAO report, SMRs and new reactor concepts "face some common challenges such as long time frames and high costs associated with the shift from development to deployment − that is, in the construction of the first commercial reactors of a particular type."

The report notes the US government's generous financial support for utilities developing SMRs and advanced reactor concepts − DoE provided US$152.5 million (€137m) in fiscal year 2015 alone. Advanced reactor concepts attracting DoE largesse are the high temperature gas cooled reactor, the sodium cooled fast reactor, and to a lesser extent the molten salt reactor (specifically, a sub-type known as the fluoride salt cooled high temperature reactor).

DoE and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials do not expect applications for advanced reactors for at least five years. In other words, an application may (or may not) be submitted some time between five years and five centuries from now.

Advanced reactor designers told the GAO that they have been challenged to find investors due to the lengthy timeframe, costs, and uncertainty. Advanced reactor concepts face greater technical challenges than light water SMRs because of fundamental design differences. Thus designers have significantly more R&D issues to resolve, including in areas such as materials studies and fuel certification, coolant chemistry studies, and safety analysis. Some members of the expert group convened by the GAO noted a potential need for new test facilities to support this work. Furthermore, according to reactor designers, certifying or licensing an advanced reactor may be particularly time-consuming and difficult, adding to the already considerable economic uncertainty for the applicants.

The process of developing and certifying a specific reactor design can take 10 years or more for design work and nearly 3.5 years, as a best case, for NRC certification. Even that timeframe is more hope than expectation. Recent light water reactor design certifications, for the Westinghouse AP1000 and the GE Hitachi ESBWR, have taken about 15 and 11 years respectively. Both the AP1000 and ESBWR are modifications of long-established reactor types, so considerably longer timeframes can be expected for advanced concepts.

The cost to develop and certify a design can range from US$1−2 billion (€0.9−1.8b). Developers hope that costs can be reduced as they move from certification to the construction of a first-of-a-kind plant to the construction of multiple plants. But the GAO report notes that those hopes may be unfounded:

"[S]ome studies suggest that existing, large LWRs have not greatly benefitted from industry-wide standardization or learning to date for reasons including intermittent development and production. In fact, some studies have found that "reverse or negative learning" occurs when increased complexity or operation experience leads to newer safety standards. On a related point, another reactor designer said that the cost and schedule difficulties associated with building the first new design that has been certified by the NRC and started construction in the United States in three decades − the Westinghouse AP1000, a recently designed large LWR − have made it harder for light water SMRs to obtain financing because high-profile problems have made nuclear reactors in general less attractive. ... The AP1000 was the first new design that has been certified by the NRC and started construction in the United States in three decades. However, construction problems, including supply chain and regulatory issues, have resulted in cost and schedule increases."

US Government Accountability Office, July 2015, 'Nuclear Reactors: Status and challenges in development and deployment of new commercial concepts', GAO-15-652, www.gao.gov/assets/680/671686.pdf

The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) has produced an important critique of Generation IV nuclear power concepts.¹ IRSN is a government authority with 1,790 staff under the joint authority of the Ministries of Defense, the Environment, Industry, Research, and Health.

There are numerous critical analyses of Generation IV concepts by independent experts², but the IRSN critique is the first from the government of a country with an extensive nuclear industry.

The IRSN report focuses on the six Generation IV concepts prioritised by the Generation IV International Forum (GIF), which brings together 12 countries with an interest in new reactor types, plus Euratom. France is itself one of the countries involved in the GIF.

The six concepts prioritised by the GIF are:

• Sodium cooled Fast Reactors (SFR);
• Very High Temperature Reactors, with thermal neutron spectrum (VHTR);
• Gas-cooled Fast Reactors (GFR);
• Lead-cooled Fast Reactors (LFR) or Lead-Bismuth (LB) cooled Fast Reactors;
• Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), with fast or thermal neutron spectrum; and
• SuperCritical Water Reactors (SCWR), with fast or thermal neutron spectrum.

The report states: "There is still much R&D to be done to develop the Generation IV nuclear reactors, as well as for the fuel cycle and the associated waste management which depends on the system chosen."

IRSN considers the SFR system to be the only one to have reached a degree of maturity compatible with the construction of a reactor prototype during the first half of this century − and even the development of an SFR prototype would require further preliminary studies and technological developments.

Only SFR and VHTR systems can boast operating experience. IRSN states: "No operating experience feedback from the other four systems studied can be put to direct use. The technological difficulties involved rule out any industrial deployment of these systems within the time frame considered [mid century]."

The report says that for LFR and GFR systems, small prototypes might be built by mid-century. For MSR and SCWR systems, there "is no likelihood of even an experimental or prototype MSR or SCWR being built during the first half of this century" and "it seems hard to imagine any reactor being built before the end of the century".

IRSN notes that it is difficult to thoroughly evaluate safety and radiation protection standards of Generation IV systems as some concepts have already been partially tried and tested, while others are still in the early stages of development.

IRSN is sceptical about safety claims: "At the present stage of development, IRSN does not notice evidence that leads to conclude that the systems under review are likely to offer a significantly improved level of safety compared with Generation III reactors, except perhaps for the VHTR ..." Moreover the VHTR system could bring about significant safety improvements "but only by significantly limiting unit power".

The report notes that the safety of fast reactors can be problematic because of high operating temperatures and the toxicity and corrosive nature of most coolants considered. It says that issues arising from the Fukushima disaster require detailed examination, such as: choice of coolant; operating temperatures and power densities (which are generally higher for Generation IV concepts); and in some cases, fuel reprocessing facilities that present the risk of toxic releases.

The report is unenthusiastic about research into transmutation of minor actinides (long-lived waste products in spent fuel), saying that "this option offers only a very slight advantage in terms of inventory reduction and geological waste repository volume when set against the induced safety and radiation protection constraints for fuel cycle facilities, reactors and transport." It notes that ASN, the French nuclear safety authority, has recently announced that minor actinide transmutation would not be a deciding factor in the choice of a future reactor system.

The reports findings on the six GIF concepts are briefly summarised here:

Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors (SFR)

The main safety advantage is the use of low-pressure liquid coolant. The normal operating temperature of this coolant is significantly lower than its boiling point, allowing a grace period of several hours during loss-of-cooling events. The advantage gained from the high boiling point of sodium, however, must be weighed against the fact that the structural integrity of the reactor cannot be guaranteed near this temperature.

The use of sodium also comes with a number of drawbacks due to its high reactivity not only with water and air, but also with MOX fuel.

It seems possible for SFR technology to reach a safety level at least equivalent to that of Generation III pressurised water reactors, but IRSN is unable to determine whether it could significantly exceed this level, in view of design differences and the current state of knowledge and research.

Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTR)

The VHTR benefits from the operating experience feedback obtained from High Temperature Reactors (HTR).

This technology is intrinsically safe with respect to loss of cooling, which means that it could be used to design a reactor that does not require an active decay heat removal system. The VHTR system could therefore bring about significant safety improvements compared with Generation III reactors, especially regarding core melt prevention.

VHTR safety performance can only be guaranteed by significantly limiting unit power.

The feasibility of the system has yet to be determined and will chiefly depend on the development of fuels and materials capable of withstanding high temperatures; the currently considered operating temperature of around 1000°C is close to the transformation temperature of materials commonly used in the nuclear industry.

Lead-cooled Fast Reactors (LFR)

Unlike sodium, lead does not react violently with water or air.

The thermal inertia associated with the large volume of lead used and its very high density results in long grace periods in the event of loss of cooling.

In addition, the high boiling point at atmospheric pressure is a guarantee of high margins under normal operating conditions and rules out the risk of coolant boiling.

The main drawback of lead-cooled (or lead-bismuth cooled) reactors is that the coolant tends to corrode and erode stainless steel structures.

LFR safety is reliant on operating procedures, which does not seem desirable in a Generation IV reactor.

The highly toxic nature of lead and its related products, especially polonium-210, produced when lead-bismuth is used, raises the problem of potential environmental impact.
IRSN is unable to determine whether the LFR system could guarantee a significantly higher safety level than Generation III reactors.

Various technical hurdles need to be overcome before a reactor of this type could be considered.

Gas-cooled Fast Reactors (GFR)

Given the current state of GFR development, construction of an industrial prototype reactor would not be technically feasible. GFR specifications are highly ambitious and raise a number of technological problems that are still a long way from being solved.

From the safety point of view, the GFR does not display any intrinsic quality likely to lead to a significant improvement over Generation III reactors.

Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)

The MSR differs considerably from the other systems proposed by the GIF. The main differences are that the coolant and fuel are mixed in some models and that liquid fuel is used.

The MSR has several advantages, including its burning, breeding and actinide-recycling capabilities.

Its intrinsic neutron properties could be put to good use as, in theory, they should allow highly stable reactor operation. The very low thermal inertia of salt and very high operating temperatures of the system, however, call for the use of fuel salt drainage devices. System safety depends mainly on the reliability and performance of these devices.

Salt has some drawbacks − it is corrosive and has a relatively high crystallisation temperature.

The reactor must also be coupled to a salt processing unit and the system safety analysis must take into account the coupling of the two facilities.

Consideration must be given to the high toxicity of some salts and substances generated by the processes used in the salt processing unit.

The feasibility of fuel salt processing remains to be demonstrated.

SuperCritical-Water-cooled Reactors (SCWR)

The SCWR is the only system selected by GIF that uses water as a coolant. The SCWR is seen as a further development of existing water reactors and thus benefits from operating experience feedback, especially from boiling water reactors. Its chief advantage is economic.

While the use of supercritical water avoids problems relating to the phase change from liquid to vapour, it does not present any intrinsic advantage in terms of safety.

Thermal inertia is very low, for example, when the reactor is shut down.

The use of supercritical water in a nuclear reactor raises many questions, in particular its behaviour under neutron flux.

At the current stage of development, it is impossible to ascertain whether the system will eventually become significantly safer than Generation III reactors.

References:

1. IRSN, 2015, 'Review of Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems', www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News/Pages/20150427_Generation-IV-nuclear-energy...

Direct download: www.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/News/Documents/IRSN_Report-GenIV_04-2015.pdf

2. See for example:

International Panel on Fissile Materials, 2010, 'Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status', www.ipfmlibrary.org/rr08.pdf

Helmut Hirsch, Oda Becker, Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt, April 2005, 'Nuclear Reactor Hazards: Ongoing Dangers of Operating Nuclear Technology in the 21st Century', www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/nuclearreactorhazards