Education and Training Series #42: Comparison of 16 Reactors Neutronic Performance in Closed Th-U and U-Pu Cycles

These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.

These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG). 

Just as in all other industries, sustainability is vital to nuclear energy production. Recycling of nuclear fuel contributes to the environmental and social pillars of that sustainability because it simultaneously improves natural resources utilization and waste minimization. This webinar provides additional insight to the consequences of repetitive fuel recycling and compares selected reactors based on their neutronics performance in the closed Th-U and U-Pu cycles. Because the closed fuel cycle has been discussed in several previous GIF webinars, this presentation focuses on less common perspectives. The closed fuel cycle will be presented as a Bateman equation eigenstate. In several cases, the eigenstate will be achieved by irradiation of subcritical fuels. It will be shown that all reactors in the respective fuel cycle have, by chance, the same average neutron production per fission. Hence, the usual measure η-2 will be replaced by fission probability discussion. Although the Bateman equation eigenstate in this comparative study is reached without fission products, their role in the closed cycle will be addressed.