Towards an intrinsically safe and economic thorium breeder reactor

摘要: Abstract Thorium does not have intrinsic fissile content unlike uranium. 232Th has nearly three times thermal absorption cross section compared to 238U and hence requires much larger externally fed uranium based fuel. These factors give a permanent economic competitive edge Thus thorium is inducted in any significant measure present day power reactors, despite the fact that more abundant earth’s crust than Uranium reserves vary from country there also difficulty having equitable distribution of when 235U would get exhausted, perhaps sooner countries limited reserve, will be need switch over today’s open fuel cycle programme on feed closed Pu feed. At stage (depleted) become equal candidates form fertile base. All considerations readdressed. The size growth nuclear dependent maximizing conversion rate those reactors. In this paper we reemphasize principles details reactor concept ‘A Breeder Reactor’ (ATBR), which use PuO2 seeded thoria found excellent core characteristics like two years length with zero control maneuvers, fairly high seed output input ratio intrinsically safe reactivity coefficients [Jagannathan V, Ganesan S, Karthikeyan R. Sensitivity studies for breeder design data libraries WIMS library update project. In: Proceedings international conference emerging energy systems ICENES-2000, September 25–28, 2000, Petten, Netherlands].