Operational and Decommissioning Experience with Fast Reactors
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IAEA-TECDOC-1405 Operational and decommissioning experience with fast reactors Proceedings of a technical meeting held in Cadarache, France, 11–15 March 2002 August 2004 IAEA-TECDOC-1405 Operational and decommissioning experience with fast reactors Proceedings of a technical meeting held in Cadarache, France, 11–15 March 2002 August 2004 The originating Section of this publication in the IAEA was: Nuclear Power Technology Development Section International Atomic Energy Agency Wagramer Strasse 5 P.O. Box 100 A-1400 Vienna, Austria OPERATIONAL AND DECOMMISSIONING EXPERIENCE WITH FAST REACTORS IAEA, VIENNA, 2004 IAEA-TECDOC-1405 ISBN 92–0–107804–8 ISSN 1011–4289 © IAEA, 2004 Printed by the IAEA in Austria August 2004 FOREWORD The fast reactor, which can generate electricity and breed additional fissile material for future fuel stocks, is a resource that will be needed when economic uranium supplies for the advanced water cooled reactors or other thermal-spectrum options diminish. Further, the fast-fission fuel cycle in which material is recycled offers the flexibility needed to contribute decisively towards solving the problem of growing ‘spent’ fuel inventories by greatly reducing the volume of high level waste that must be disposed of in long term repositories. This is a waste management option that also should be retained for future generations. The fast reactor has been the subject of research and development programmes in a number of countries for more than 50 years. Now, despite early sharing and innovative worldwide research and development, ongoing work is confined to China, France, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the Russian Federation. Information generated worldwide will be needed in the future. Presently, it is in danger of being lost — even in those countries continuing the work. Many Member States have repeatedly underscored the importance of knowledge preservation and transmission to the young generation. In response to expressed needs by Member States, the IAEA has undertaken concrete steps towards the implementation of a fast reactor data retrieval and knowledge preservation initiative. Within the framework and drawing on the wide expertise of its Technical Working Group on Fast Reactors (TWG-FR), the IAEA convened, November 22–24 1999, an Advisory Group Meeting on Evaluation of Fast Reactor Core Physics Tests. The outcome of this advisory group meeting was to underline the importance of an IAEA initiated effort to preserve fast reactor physics knowledge with an exhaustive review of all available sources of fast reactor experimental data, including data from critical facilities. The initiative received further support at a special technical session, entitled Passing on Fifty Years of Fast Reactor Knowledge to a New Generation in Nuclear Research and Development, which was held at the 2001 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, and co- chaired by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and IAEA staff. In another, more general development, the IAEA Director General convened a meeting of senior officials form around the world to address the more general issue of nuclear knowledge management (17–19 June 2002). At this meeting, there was widespread agreement that, for sustainability reasons, long term development of nuclear power, as a part of the world’s future energy mix, will require fast reactor technology and, that given the decline in fast reactor development projects, data retrieval and knowledge preservation efforts in this area are of particular importance. Operational experience constitutes an important aspect of any fast reactor knowledge base. It is within the framework of the aforementioned initiative, and with the objective of gathering and exchanging information on fast reactor operational and decommissioning experience, and initiating the process of analyzing it (a necessary step in the process of transforming ‘knowledge’ into ‘wisdom’), that the IAEA convened the Technical Meeting on Operational and Decommissioning Experience with Fast Reactors. The technical meeting, hosted by CEA, Centre d’Etudes de Cadarache, France, was held 11–15 March 2002. – 2 – The IAEA would like to express its appreciation to all the participants, authors of papers, chairpersons, and to the hosts at CEA Cadarache. The IAEA officer responsible for this publication was A. Stanculescu of the Division of Nuclear Power. EDITORIAL NOTE The papers in these proceedings are reproduced as submitted to the Publishing Section and have not undergone rigorous editorial review by the IAEA. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the IAEA, the governments of the nominating Member States or the nominating organizations. The use of particular designations of countries or territories does not imply any judgement by the publisher, the IAEA, as to the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries. The mention of names of specific companies or products (whether or not indicated as registered) does not imply any intention to infringe proprietary rights, nor should it be construed as an endorsement or recommendation on the part of the IAEA. The authors are responsible for having obtained the necessary permission for the IAEA to reproduce, translate or use material from sources already protected by copyrights. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 1 2. SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................ 2 3. GENERAL STATEMENTS ................................................................................................. 2 3.1. France.....................................................................................................................................2 3.1.1 Background ..................................................................................................................2 3.1.2. Ongoing sodium cooled fast reactor R&D...................................................................3 3.2. Germany .................................................................................................................................4 3.3. India........................................................................................................................................4 3.3.1 Fast breeder test reactor ...............................................................................................4 3.3.2 Prototype fast breeder reactor ......................................................................................5 3.3.3. Knowledge preservation ..............................................................................................5 3.4. Japan.......................................................................................................................................6 3.5. United States of America .......................................................................................................6 4. SESSION SUMMARIES ...................................................................................................... 7 4.1. Session 1: Sodium cooled fast reactor operational experience...............................................7 4.2. Session 2: Sodium cooled fast reactor decommissioning experience ....................................7 4.3. Session 3: Fast reactor physics and engineering experiments and analysis ...........................8 4.4. Session 4: Sodium cooled fast reactor knowledge preservation.............................................8 SESSION 1: FAST REACTOR OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE Fast breeder test reactor. 15 years of operating experience ..................................................... 15 K.V. Suresh Kumar, R.P. Kapoor, P.V. Ramalingam,B. Rajendran, G. Srinivasan, K.V. Kasiviswanathan Operational experience and upgrading program of the experimental fast reactor JOYO..................................................................................................................... 29 T. Aoyama, T. Odo, S. Suzuki, S. Yogo Operational experience of BN-350 .......................................................................................... 63 I. Dumchev Lifetime extension of the Phénix nuclear power plant............................................................. 83 L. Martin, D. Pepe, R. Dupraz Advanced and innovative approaches to inspect the Phénix fast breeder reactor................................................................................................................... 93 M. Giraud, P. Major, J. Gros, L. Martin, Ph. Benoist, O. Burat Contents_4505.doc Page 2 Sodium cleaning in Phénix steam generator modules.............................................................. 99 O. Gastaldi, V. Grabon, Ch. Cavagna Review of fast reactor operation experience gained in the Russian Frederation. Approaches to the co-ordinated research project ................................................................... 107 V.M. Poplavsky, Yu.M. Ashurko, Yu.E. Bagdassarov, A.V. Karpov, M.P. Nikulin, A.M Tsiboulia, N.N. Oshkanov, A.I. Kiryushin,B.A. Vasilyev, K.L. Suknev, A.S. Korol’kov, V.V. Denisov SESSION 2: FAST REACTOR DECOMMISSIONING EXPERIENCE Decommissioning experience from the experimental breeder reactor-II............................... 137 S.P. Henslee, K.E. Rosenberg Sodium removal & decontamination process and decommissioning considerations for the PFBR components .............................................................................