Impact of P&T on Waste Mgt. And Geological Disposal

Impact of ADS on Waste Mgt.

H. Aït AbderrahimSCK-CEN

Boeretang 200, B-2400 Mol, Belgiumhaitabde@sckcen.be

Background (1)

• During the 4 plenary sessions of yesterday of this EURADWASTE’04 Conference, I picked the following ideas and facts: In Europe : 35% of our electricity with 163 nuclear reactors

(PWR, BWR and VVER since the new enlargement) Nuclear energy : only reliable energy resource in EU able to

ensure our energy independence New reactors are going to be build (of 3rd generation in first

instance) with life time of 60 years, then we are going with LWR reactor technology up 2100. Thus same type of Waste as today’s produced ones

The burden of nuclear energy is the HLW Mgt. We have a technical solution (geological disposal) but looks

rather difficult to implement due to public opposition (see the example of Windscale, Gorleben)

Background (2)

Public concerns should be understood and taken care of. Opposition of public is due to ignorance of the reality of the

problem but also to inappropriate answers (sometimes too technical whereas people are even not knowing what are we doing with the waste)

AQG complementary research addressing the HLW mgt. Issue

• On the other hand we here also: We hope to see the Gen IV reactors coming in service around

2030~2050, producing last waste but are not foreseen for the moment to deal with presently produced waste

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt?

LWR-UO2 50GWd/tHMProduct Kg/tHM % isotopic composition

U 935 238U 235U99% 1%

Pu 12 238Pu 239Pu 240Pu 241Pu 242Pu3.5% 51.9% 23.8% 12.9% 7.9%

Np 0.72 237Np100%

Am 0.66 241Am 243Am58.1% 41.7%

Cm 0.11 242Cm 244Cm8.8% 91.2%

FPs 50 .7 LLFP* 3.44 kg/tHM

*(99Tc:1.2 ; 93Zr:1.05 ; 135Cs:0.59 ; 107Pd:0.34 ; 129I:0.26)

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt?

• Yes, Partitioning can impact the HLW management by : limiting the quantities to deal with (MA,

LLFP) eventually Pu if not considered as it should be namely a resource.

Separating the isotopes more contributing to the thermal source in the waste (Sr, Cs,..)

• What about Transmutation ?

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt?

Does P&T impact the Waste Mgt?

• Yes, in theory and equally as good in FR as in ADS systems

• So why to go ADS ? BTW what is ADS ? (cfr. B. Barré « people do not know what are we talking about)

ADS : Accelerator Driven System

Why ADS for HLW transmutation?

ProtonAccelerator

SubcriticalNeutron

Multiplier

SpallationSource

p n

ADS systems are presently studied for nuclear

waste transmutation because of the (delayed

neutron fraction which let the reactor control):

235U 650 pcm 238U 1480 pcm238Pu 120 pcm 239Pu 210 pcm240Pu 270 pcm 241Pu 490 pcm242Pu 573 pcm 237Np 334 pcm241Am 113 pcm 243Am 208 pcm242Cm 33 pcm 244Cm 100 pcm

Therefore if one wants to load large quantities of MAs in the Waste burner it should be a subcritical machine

Is ADS a dream of crazy scientists?

• I hope that the technical presentations of this morning convinced you that ADS development is going on at serious level with partners from: European Nuclear research centres, European nuclear industry More then 30 European Universities

• I invite to discuss with the colleagues presenting the details of this programme in the Poster session.

• What about future ?

NUWASTE-2004-3.2.2.1-1: “Transmutation of high-level nuclear waste in an ADS”

Objectives:Evaluation of the industrial practicability of trans-mutation of high-level nuclear waste in an ADS and development of the basic knowledge and technologies needed.  

 

Scope: System analysis for an accelerator driven system (ADS) including

more advanced integrated design, cost evaluation of the whole system and safety and licensing issues.

Development of the basic knowledge and technologies required for: Improving reliability of high energy accelerators for ADS applications coupling of ADS components (accelerator, spallation target & sub-critical

core) material and coolant technologies advanced fuels and targets basic nuclear data        

FP6 2nd Call of the EC for WP04

Our community view to respond this call is:

IP EUROTRANS

DM2 TRADE-PLUSTRADE Experiment

DM4 DEMETRAHLM Technologies

DM1 DESIGNETD Design

DM5 NUDATRANuclear Data

Scientific ConsultancyCommittee Governing Council

DM3 AFTRAFuels

EC

Project Co-ordination Committee

Co-ordinatorIP EUROPART

RedImpact

Related FP6 Projects:

Related National and International Programmes

DM0 ManagementIP, DMs, WPs, Ts

Project Office

DM2 TRADE-PLUSTRADE Experiment

DM4 DEMETRAHLM Technologies

DM1 DESIGNETD Design

DM5 NUDATRANuclear Data

Scientific ConsultancyCommittee Governing Council

DM3 AFTRAFuels

ECEC

Project Co-ordination Committee

Co-ordinatorIP EUROPART

RedImpact

Related FP6 Projects:

IP EUROPART

RedImpact

Related FP6 Projects:

Related National and International Programmes

DM0 ManagementIP, DMs, WPs, Ts

Project Office

Our recommendation to the EC

• Even today’s effort of the FP6 is appreciated (factor 2 for the Waste mgt. programme FP5/FP6), we hope to see : a larger increase of this support, The stimulation towards the realisation of a

large scale experimental demonstration of ADS