The fast-neutron breeder fission: development, operational experience, and implications for future design in the United States
As the need for breeder technology in the United States has receded into the more distant future, it has become clear that an alternative justification must be found for continued priority development of sodium-cooled fast-reactor technology. Both the modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor and the liquid-metal-cooled reactor (LMR) have technical attributes that provide more simple and transparent solutions to some of the problems confronting the nuclear enterprise, in addition to their potential for greater market penetration, resource extension, and waste management improvements. For the past five years, the LMR development programme in the United States has attempted to use these technical attributes in more innovative ways to provide more elegant solutions for the practical commercial application of nuclear energy. This paper discusses the reasons and status of the technological approaches that have evolved to support these policy considerations. For the LMR, efforts are focused on four interrelated development thrusts: (1) increased use of standardization; (2) passive safety approaches; (3) modularity; and (4) improved fuel cycle approaches. The paper also discusses the status of related design activities being conducted by the General Electric Company and a team of U. S. vendors.