• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.517-526
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• 2008

The widespread concern regarding the management of spent fuel that mainly contributes to nuclear waste has led to the development of the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) as one of the most promising future types of reactors at both national and international levels. Various reactor deployment scenarios with SFR introductions with different conversion ratios in the existing PWR-dominant nuclear fleet have been assessed to optimize the SFR deployment strategy to replace PWRs with the view toward a reduction in the level of spent fuel as well as efficient uranium utilization through its reuse in a closed fuel cycle. An efficient reactor deployment strategy with the SFR introduction starting in 2040 has been drawn based on an SFR deployment strategy in which burners are deployed prior to breakeven reactors to reduce the amount of PWR spent fuel substantially at the early deployment stage. The PWR spent fuel disposal is reduced in this way by 98% and the cumulative uranium demand for PWRs to 2100 is projected to be 445 ktU, implying a uranium savings of 115 ktU. The SFR mix ratio in the nuclear fleet near the year 2100 is estimated to be approximately 35-40%. PWRs will remain as a main power reactor type until 2100 and SFRs will support waste minimization and fuel utilization.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.281-288
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• 2003

The MATRA-LMR code has been developed based on a subchannel analysis method for LMR (Liquid Metal Reactor) core subassembly thermal hydraulic design and analysis. The code was improved to allow a seven assembly calculation and can account for inter-assembly heat transfer based on a lumped parameter model. This paper describes the main modifications and improvements of the code and shows reference calculation results which compared single assembly calculation with seven assembly calculation cased for driver and blanket subassemblies of the KALIMER 150 MWe breakeven conceptual design core. KAL- IMER is a pool-type sodium cooled reactor with a thermal output of 392.0 MWth, which have inherently safe, environmentally friendly, proliferation-resistant and economically viable reactor concepts.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.101-111
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• 2004

The main purpose of a liquid metal reactor core thermal-hydraulic design is to efficiently extract the core thermal power by distributing the appropriate sodium coolant flow according to the power distribution in the core. The thermal-hydraulic design procedure consists of the coolant flow distribution to the sub-assemblies, the coolant/fuel temperature calculations and detailed subchannel analysis. This paper describes the LMR core thermal-hydraulic design methodology and summarizes the major design and analysis results of KALIMER breeder and breakeven cores and subassemblies. KALIMER is a 150 MWe rated (392 MWth) heterogeneous core with U-TRU-Zr ternary alloy fuel and sodium coolant.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.96-101
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• 2020

In this paper, the commercial feasibility of trigeneration, producing heat, power, and hydrogen (CHHP) and using biogas derived from macroalgae (i.e., seaweed biomass feedstock), are investigated. For this purpose, a commercial scale trigeneration process, consisting of three MW solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), gas turbine, and organic Rankine cycle, is designed conceptually and simulated using Aspen plus, a commercial process simulator. To produce hydrogen, a solid oxide fuel cell system is re-designed by the removal of after-burner and the addition of a water-gas shift reactor. The cost of each unit operation equipment in the process is estimated through the calculated heat and mass balances from simulation, with the techno-economic analysis following through. The designed CHHP process produces 2.3 MW of net power and 50 kg hr^-1 of hydrogen with an efficiency of 37% using 2 ton hr^-1 of biogas from 3.47 ton hr^-1 (dry basis) of brown algae as feedstock. Based on these results, a realistic scenario is evaluated economically and the breakeven electricity selling price (BESP) is calculated. The calculated BESP is ¢10.45 kWh^-1, which is comparable to or better than the conventional power generation. This means that the CHHP process based on SOFC can be a viable alternative when the technical targets on SOFC are reached.