Accelerators For Subcritical Molten Salt Reactors

Download or read book Accelerators for Subcritical Molten-Salt Reactors written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accelerator parameters for subcritical reactors have usually been based on using solid nuclear fuel much like that used in all operating critical reactors as well as the thorium burning accelerator-driven energy amplifier proposed by Rubbia et al. An attractive alternative reactor design that used molten salt fuel was experimentally studied at ORNL in the 1960s, where a critical molten salt reactor was successfully operated using enriched U235 or U233 tetrafluoride fuels. These experiments give confidence that an accelerator-driven subcritical molten salt reactor will work better than conventional reactors, having better efficiency due to their higher operating temperature, having the inherent safety of subcritical operation, and having constant purging of volatile radioactive elements to eliminate their accumulation and potential accidental release in dangerous amounts. Moreover, the requirements to drive a molten salt reactor can be considerably relaxed compared to a solid fuel reactor, especially regarding accelerator reliability and spallation neutron targetry, to the point that much of the required technology exists today. It is proposed that Project-X be developed into a prototype commercial machine to produce energy for the world by, for example, burning thorium in India and nuclear waste from conventional reactors in the USA.