The integral fast reactor ( IFR , initially sophisticated liquid-metal reactor ) is a design for nuclear reactors using fast neutrons and no neutron moderators (reactors "fast"). IFR will breed more fuel and is distinguished by nuclear fuel cycles using re-electrorefining at the reactor site.
The development of IFR began in 1984 and the US Department of Energy built a prototype, Experimental Breeder Reactor II. On April 3, 1986, two tests showed the security attached to the IFR concept. This test is an accident simulation involving a loss of coolant flow. Even with a normal shutdown device disabled, the reactor dies safely without overheating anywhere in the system. The IFR project was canceled by the US Congress in 1994, three years before it was completed.
The proposed Sodium-Cooled Generation IV Quick Reactor is the fastest surviving breeder reactor design. Other countries have also designed and operated quick reactors.
S-PRISM (from SuperPRISM), also called the PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module), is the name of the nuclear power plant designated by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) based on the Integral Fast Reactor.
Video Integral fast reactor
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IFR is cooled by liquid or lead sodium and triggered by uranium and plutonium alloys. The fuel is contained in steel cladding with liquid sodium filling the space between fuel and cladding. Vacuum over fuel allows helium and radioactive xenon to be securely gathered without pressure that increases significantly within the fuel element, and also enables the fuel to expand without breaking cladding, making metal fuels rather than practical oxide fuels.
The advantage of lead as opposed to sodium is that it is not chemically reactive, especially with water or air. The disadvantage is that liquid lead is much more viscous than liquid sodium (increasing pumping costs), and there are many radioactive neutron activation products, while essentially none of the sodium.
Basic design decisions
Metallic fuel
Metal fuels with vacuum filled sodium in cladding to allow fuel expansion have been demonstrated in EBR-II. Metallic fuel makes pyroprocessing technology a reprocessing option.
Metallic fuel fabrication is easier and less expensive than ceramic fuel (oxide), especially under long-range handling conditions.
Metallic fuel has better heat conductivity and lower heat capacity than oxide, which has safety advantages.
Sodium cooler
The use of liquid coolant eliminates the need for pressure vessels around the reactor. Sodium has excellent nuclear characteristics, high heat capacity and heat transfer capacity, low viscosity, low melting point and high boiling point, and excellent compatibility with other materials including structural materials and fuels. The high heat capacity of the cooler and the removal of water from the core enhances the inherent core security.
Pool design instead of circle
Containing all the major coolants in the pond produces several safety advantages and reliability.
On-site reprocessing using pyroprocessing
Reprocessing is crucial to achieving most of the benefits of rapid reactors, increasing fuel use and reducing radioactive waste each by several fold.
On-site processing is what makes IFR integral . This and the use of pyroprocessing both reduce the risk of proliferation.
Pyroprocessing (using electrorefiners) has been demonstrated in EBR-II as practical on the required scale. Compared to the aqueous process of PUREX, it is economical in cost of capital, and is not suitable for weapon material production, again unlike PUREX developed for weapons programs.
Pyroprocessing makes metallic fuel the preferred fuel. Both decisions are complementary.
Summary
Four basic decisions of metallic fuels, sodium cooling, pool design, and on-site remodeling by electrorefining, complement each other, and produce fuel cycles that are proliferative and efficient in fuel use, and reactors with high levels of safety while minimizing high waste production. The practicality of this decision has been demonstrated during the years of EBR-II operations.
Maps Integral fast reactor
Benefits
- The breeding reactor (such as IFR) in principle can extract almost all of the energy contained in uranium or thorium, reducing fuel requirements by nearly twice that of a traditional one-through reactor, which extracts less than 0.65% of the energy in uranium mined, and less than 5% of the enriched uranium they burn. This can greatly reduce the concern about the fuel supply or energy used in mining. In fact, uranium extraction of seawater can provide enough fuel for the breeder reactor to meet our energy needs indefinitely, thus making nuclear energy a sustainable such as solar or wind renewable energy.
- Rapid reactors can "burn" long-lasting components of nuclear waste waste (actinides: small plutonium and actinide reactors), turning liabilities into assets. The other major waste component, the fission product (FP), will be stable at a lower radioactivity level than the original natural uranium ore it acquires in two to four centuries instead of tens of thousands of years. The fact that a fourth-generation reactor is being designed to use waste from a third generation plant can fundamentally change the nuclear story - potentially making combinations of 3rd and 4th generations into more attractive energy choices than the 3rd generation by itself, both from the perspective of waste management and energy security.
- The use of medium-scale onsite processing facilities, and the use of pyroprocessing rather than water reprocessing, is claimed to greatly reduce the potential for proliferation of possible fiscal transfers due to in-situ/integral processing facilities./li>
Security
In traditional light water reactors (LWRs) the core must be maintained at high pressure to keep the liquid water at high temperatures. Conversely, since IFR is a liquid metal-cooled reactor, the nucleus can operate at near ambient pressure, dramatically reducing the danger of a loss-of-coolant accident. The whole reactor core, heat exchanger and primary coolant pump is immersed in a pool of liquid or lead sodium, making the primary cooler loss highly unlikely. The cooling loop is designed to allow cooling through natural convection, which means that in case of unexpected power loss or shutdown of the reactor, the heat from the reactor core will be sufficient to keep the coolant circulation even if the main cooling pump fails.
IFR also has passive security advantages compared to conventional LWR. Fuel and cladding are designed in such a way that as they expand as the temperature increases, more neutrons will be able to escape from the nucleus, thus reducing the rate of fission chain reactions. In other words, an increase in core temperature will act as a feedback mechanism that lowers core strength. This attribute is known as the negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. Most LWRs also have negative reactivity coefficients; however, in IFR, this effect is strong enough to stop the reactor from achieving core damage without the operator's external action or safety system. This is shown in a series of security tests on the prototype. Pete Planchon, the engineer who conducted the test for an international audience quipped, "Back in 1986, we actually gave prototypes [20 MWe] sophisticated fast reactors a few possibilities to melt.This refuses politely both times."
Sodium liquid presents a security problem because it burns spontaneously when in contact with air and can cause an explosion when in contact with water. This is the case at the Monju Nuclear Power Plant in an accident and fire in 1995. To reduce the risk of explosion after a water leak from a steam turbine, the IFR design (like other sodium-cooled fast reactors) includes a metal-cooling liquid loop between the reactor and the steam turbine. The purpose of this loop is to ensure that any explosion that follows the mixing of sodium and turbine water is inadvertently limited to a secondary heat exchanger and does not pose a risk to the reactor itself. Alternative designs use lead as a substitute for sodium as the main coolant. Lead loss is higher density and viscosity, which increases pumping costs, and radioactive activation products resulting from the absorption of neutrons. A lead-bismuth eutectate, as used in some Russian undersea reactors, has lower viscosity and density, but similar product activation problems may occur.
Efficiency and fuel cycle
The goal of the IFR project is to improve the efficiency of uranium use by breeding plutonium and eliminating the need for transuranic isotopes that have ever left the site. The reactor is an unmoderated design running on fast neutrons, designed to allow transuranic isotopes to be consumed (and in some cases used as fuel).
Compared to current light-water reactors with a single-through fission cycle that induces fission (and energy gain) of less than 1% of the uranium found in nature, reactor breeders such as IFR have very efficient (99.5% of uranium undergoing fission ) fuel cycle. The basic scheme used is pyroelectric separation, a common method in other metallurgical processes, to remove transuranic and actinides from waste and concentrate them. This concentrated fuel is then reformed, on site, into a new fuel element.
The available fuel metals are never separated from the plutonium isotopes or of all fission products, and are therefore relatively difficult to use in nuclear weapons. Also, plutonium never leaves the site, and thus much more open to unauthorized redirects.
Another important benefit to eliminating the long-term transuranic cycle of waste is the waste remaining into short-term hazards. After the actinide (recycled uranium, plutonium and small actinide) is recycled, the remaining radioactive remaining isotope is a fission product, with a half-life of 90 years (Sm-151) or less or 211,100 years (Tc-99) and more ; plus any activation product of the non-fuel fuel reactor component.
Comparison with light water reactors
Nuclear waste
IFR-style reactors produce far less waste than LWR-style reactors, and can even utilize other wastes as fuel.
The main argument for pursuing current IFR-style technology is that it provides the best solution to the problem of existing nuclear waste because fast reactors can be driven from waste products from existing reactors as well as from plutonium used in weapons, as in operations, by 2014, BN-800 reactor. The depleted uranium (DU) waste can also be used as fuel in fast reactors.
The IFR reactor waste products have a short half-life, which means that they quickly decay and become relatively safe, or part-time long, which means little radioactive. Since pyroprocessing the total volume of true waste/fission products is 1/20th the volume of fuel released is produced by the aquatic plants of the same power output, and is often regarded as waste. 70% of fission products are either stable or have half life under one year. Technetium-99 and iodine-129, which constitute 6% of fission products, have a very long half-life but can be transmitted to isotopes with very short half-lives (15.46 seconds and 12.36 hours) by absorption of neutrons in reactors, effectively destroying them (see more long-lived fission products). Zirconium-93, 5% of other fission products, in principle can be recycled into fuel cladding pins, where it does not matter that it is radioactive. Excluding the contribution of the Transuranic waste (TRU) - which is the isotope produced when U-238 captures the slow thermal neutrons in LWR but not fission, all residual waste/high residual waste products ("FP") are left over from the TRU re-fuel process , less radiotoxic (in Sieverts) than natural uranium (in gram to gram) in 400 years, and continue to decline following this.
Edwin Sayre estimates that a ton of fission products (which also include extremely-weak radioactive palladium etc.) are reduced to metals, having a market value of $ 16 million.
Both forms of IFR waste are produced, containing no plutonium or other actinides. The waste radioactivity decays to the same extent as the original ore in about 300-400 years.
On-site fuel reprocessing shows that the high volume of nuclear waste leaving the plant is very small compared to the fuel spent by LWR. In fact, most LWR fuel spent in the US is kept on the reactor site, not transported for reprocessing or deployment in a geological repository. Smaller volumes of high-level waste from reprocessing may remain at the reactor site for some time, but are highly radioactive of medium-sized fission products (MLFPs) and need to be stored securely, as in current dry storage of cobs. In the first few decades of use, prior to the decay of MLFP to reduce the rate of heat production, geological repository capacity is not limited by volume but by heat generation, and the resulting heat decay of a medium-sized fission product is almost the same per unit of power of each type of fission reactor, initial repository emplacement.
The complete elimination potential of plutonium from the reactor waste stream reduces the current concerns with spent nuclear fuel from most other reactors that appear by burying or storing the fuel they spend in geological repositories, as they may be used as plutonium. mine in the future. "Despite the million-fold reduction in radiotoxicity offered by this scheme, some believe that actinide removal will offer some if there are significant advantages to discharges in the geological repository because some of the largest fission product nuclides in scenarios such as ground washing actually have more half-life longer than radioactive actinides, this concern does not take into account the plan to store these materials in insoluble Synroc, and does not measure hazards proportionately to those originating from natural sources such as medical X-rays, cosmic rays, or natural radioactive rocks (such as granite). These people are concerned with radioactive fission products such as technetium-99, iodine-129, and cesium-135 with a beak between 213,000 and 15.7 million years. "Some of these are being targeted for transmutation to tethering even of relatively low concerns this is, for example the positi void coefficient f IFR can be reduced to an acceptable level by adding technetium to the core, helium ping destroys long-life physietium-99 products by nuclear transmutation in the process. (see more long-life fission products)
Efficiency
IFRs use almost all energy content in uranium fuel while traditional light water reactors use less than 0.65% of energy in mined uranium, and less than 5% of energy in enriched uranium.
Carbon dioxide
Both IFR and LWR do not emit CO 2 during operation, although the construction and processing results of fuel in CO 2 emissions, if non-carbon neutral energy sources (such as fossil fuels) , or CO 2 emits the cement used during the construction process.
A review of Yale University 2012 published in the Journal of Industrial Ecological Analysis CO 2 cycle of life cycle assessment of nuclear power establishes that:
"Collective LCA literature shows that GHG (greenhouse gas) greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power are only a fraction of traditional fossil sources and proportional to renewable technologies."
Although this paper primarily discusses data from Generation II reactors, and does not analyze CO 2 emissions by 2050 from the current 3rd Generation Reactor being built, it summarizes the findings of a Lifecycle Assessment in a technology development reactor.
theoretical FBR [Fast Breeder Reactors] has been evaluated in the LCA literature. The limited literature that evaluates the potential of this future technology reports the average life cycle GHG emissions... similar to or lower than the LWR [light water reactors] and is intended to consume little or no uranium ore.
Fuel cycle
The fast reactor fuel must be at least 20% fissile, greater than the low enriched uranium used in LWRs. The fissile material may initially include highly enriched uranium or plutonium, from the fuel spent on LWRs, disabling nuclear weapons, or other sources. During operation the reactor produces more fissile material than a fertile material, at most about 5% more than uranium, and 1% more than thorium.
The fertile material in the rapid reactor fuel can deplete uranium (mostly U-238), natural uranium, thorium, or uranium which is recycled from spent fuel from traditional light water reactors, and even includes nonfissile isotopes of plutonium and minor actinide isotopes. Assuming no actinide leaks to the waste stream during reprocessing, the IFG 1GWe style reactor will consume about 1 ton of fertile material per year and produce about 1 ton of fission products.
Reprocessing the IFR fuel cycle with pyroprocessing (in this case, electrorefining) does not need to produce pure plutonium free from the radioactivity of fission products because the PUREX process is designed to do so. The purpose of reprocessing in the IFR fuel cycle is simply to reduce the level of fission products that are neutron toxins; even they do not need to be completely removed. The fuels spent electrallyfined are highly radioactive, but because new fuels do not need to be made exactly like LWR fuel pellets, but can only be thrown, far-reaching fabrication can be used, reducing exposure to workers.
Just like a fast reactor, by changing the material used in a blanket, IFR can be operated through a spectrum from breeders to self-sufficiency. In breeder mode (using a U-238 blanket) will produce more fissile material than the one consumed. This is useful for providing fissile material to start other plants. Using a steel reflector instead of a U-238 blanket, the reactor operates in a pure burner mode and is not the net creator of fissile material; on balance it will consume fissile and fertile material and, assuming reprocessing is free of loss, output is no actinide but only fission products and activation products. The amount of fissile material required may be a limiting factor for the rapid deployment of rapid reactors, if surplus plutonium and LWR surplus stockpiles deplete plutonium fuel. To maximize the rate at which quick reactors can be used, they can be operated in maximum breeding mode.
Because the cost of enriched uranium is currently low compared to the expected cost of large-scale pyroprocessing and electrorefining equipment and the cost of building a secondary cooling loop, the higher fuel cost of the thermal reactor during the expected operating period of the mill is offset by an increase in capital costs. (Currently in the United States, utilities pay a fixed rate of 1/10 cents per kilowatt hour to the Government for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste by law under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.If these allegations are based on the longevity of the waste, the material cycle covered fires may become more financially competitive. As the planned geological repository in the shape of Yucca Mountain will not advance, these funds have been collected over the years and currently $ 25 billion has piled up on government doors for something they have. , ie reducing the hazards posed by waste.
The reprocessing of nuclear fuel using pyroprocessing and electrorefining has not been demonstrated on a commercial scale, so investing in large IFR-style factories can be a higher financial risk than conventional light water reactors.
Passive Security
IFR uses metal alloy fuels (uranium/plutonium/zirconium) which is a good heat conductor, unlike LWR (and even some fast-breeder reactors) uranium oxide which is a poor heat conductor and reaches high temperatures at the center of the fuel pellet. IFR also has a smaller volume of fuel, since the fissile material is diluted with a fertile material with a ratio of 5 or less, compared to about 30 for LWR fuel. The IFR core requires more heat transfer per core volume during operation than the LWR core; but on the other hand, after shutdown, there is much more trapped heat that is still spreading and needs to be removed. However, heat decay from short-lived fission products and actinides is comparable in both cases, starting at high levels and decreasing with elapsed time after closure. The high volume of the sodium primary coolant in the pool configuration is designed to absorb the heat of decay without reaching the melting temperature of the fuel. Primary sodium pumps are designed with flywheel styles so they will slide slowly (90 seconds) if power is removed. This further cooling helps cool core during shutdown. If the primary cooling cycle will suddenly stop, or if the control rod is suddenly released, metallic fuel may be inadvertently demonstrated melting in EBR-I, but the melted fuel is then extruded onto the steel fuel cladding tube and out of an active core region leading to the permanent cessation of the reactor and no further fusion heat generation or fuel smelting. With metal fuel, cladding is not violated and no radioactivity is released even in extreme transients.
Self-regulation of the IFR power level is highly dependent on the thermal expansion of the fuel that allows more neutrons to escape, dampening the chain reaction. LWR has less influence than fuel thermal expansion (as many of the nuclei are neutron moderators) but have strong negative feedback from Doppler expansion (which works on thermal and epithermal neutrons, not fast neutrons) and negative vacuum coefficient of moderate water boiling/cooler; less dense vapor produces fewer and less fuel-neutrons, which are more likely to be captured by U-238 rather than inducing fission. However, the positive void coefficient IFR can be reduced to an acceptable level by adding technetium to the nucleus, helping to destroy long-lived physiumium-99 products by nuclear transmutation in the process.
IFRs are able to withstand both flow loss without SCRAM and heat sink loss without SCRAM . In addition to passive termination of the reactor, the convection currents generated in the primary cooling system will prevent fuel damage (core meltdown). This capability is shown in EBR-II. The ultimate goal is no radioactivity to be released under any circumstances.
The combustibility of sodium is a risk to operators. Sodium is flammable in air, and will ignite spontaneously when in contact with water. The use of a cooling loop between the reactor and turbine minimizes the risk of sodium fire in the reactor core.
Under the firing of neutrons, sodium-24 is produced. It is highly radioactive, emits an energetic gamma ray of 2.7 MeV followed by beta decay to form magnesium-24. The half-life is only 15 hours, so this isotope is not a long-term hazard. However, the presence of sodium-24 further requires the use of a cooling loop between the reactor and the turbine.
Proliferation
IFRs and light water reactors (LWRs) both produce reactor level plutonium, and even on high fuel can still be used, but the IFR fuel cycle has several design features that will make proliferation more difficult than the current PUREX recycling of spent LWR fuel. For one thing, it may operate at a higher burnup and therefore increase the relative abundance of non-fissile, but fertile, isotopes of Plutonium-238, Plutonium-240 and Plutonium-242.
Unlike PUREX reprocessing, refining electrolytic IFR fuels from spent fuel does not separate pure plutonium, and letting it mix with small actinides and some rare cleavage products that make the theoretical ability to bomb directly out of it is highly questionable. Instead of being transported from a large centralized processing plant to a reactor at another location, as is common now in France, from La Hague to its LWR-scattered nuclear fleet, IFR's pyroprocessed fuel will be much more resistant to unauthorized redirects. The material with a mixture of plutonium isotopes within IFR will remain at the reactor site and then burned in-situ, alternatively, if operated as a breeder reactor, some pyroprocessed fuel may be consumed by the same or other reactor. located elsewhere. However, as with conventional water reprocessing, it would still be possible to chemically extract all of the plutonium isotopes from recycled/recycled fuels and it would be much easier to do so than recycled products than from fuel spent before, with other conventional recycled nuclear fuel, MOX, will be more difficult, since recycled IFR fuels contain more fission products than MOX and because of their higher combustion, Pu-240 is more resistant to proliferation than MOX.
The advantage of eliminating actinides IFRs and burning (actinides including plutonium) from spent fuel, is to eliminate concerns about leaving IFRs to spend fuel or indeed conventional, and therefore a relatively lower burnup, depleting fuel - that may contain plutonium guns which can be used. concentration in the geological repository (or more common dry barrel storage) which may then be mined sometime in the future for weapons purposes. "
Because reactor level plutonium contains plutonium isotopes with high spontaneous fission levels, and this troublesome isotope ratio - from the standpoint of weapons manufacturing, only increases when fuel burns longer and longer, it is much harder to do so. produce nuclear fission weapons that will achieve substantial results from higher fuel burns than from commonly burned burning fuel, LWR consumables.
Therefore, the risk of proliferation is greatly reduced by the IFR system by many metrics, but not completely eliminated. Plutonium from ALMR recycled fuels will have an isotope composition similar to those obtained from other burnt-burning nuclear fuel sources. Although this makes the material less attractive for weapons production, these weapons can be used in varying degrees of sophistication/with a fusion drive.
The US government detonated a nuclear device in 1962 by using a "reactor-level plutonium" determined later, although in the newer category it would be considered a fuel-grade plutonium, typically produced by low-fuel magnox reactors.
Plutonium produced in fuels from the breeder reactor generally has a higher fraction of the plutonium-240 isotope, than those produced in other reactors, making it less attractive for gun use, especially in the design of a first-generation nuclear weapon similar to Fat Man. It offers an intrinsic level of proliferative resistance, but plutonium is made in uranium blankets that surround the core, if such blankets are used, usually with high Pu-239 qualities, containing very little Pu-240, making it very attractive. for weapon use.
"Although some recent proposals for the future of the ALMR/IFR concept have focused more on its ability to convert and use irreversible plutonium, such as the conceptual PRISM (reactor) and BN-800 reactors operating (2014) in Russia, IFR developers recognize that 'it is undeniable that IFR can be configured as a plutonium cleaner manufacturer'. "
As mentioned above, if operated not as a burner, but as a breeder, IFR has a clear proliferation potential "if instead of processing spent fuel, the ALMR system is used to reprocess the irradiated fertilization material (ie if the U-238 breeding blanket is used), the resulting plutonium will be a superior material, with an isotope composition that is almost ideal for nuclear weapons manufacture. "
Reactor design and construction
The commercial version of IFR, S-PRISM, can be built in the factory and transported to the site. This small modular design (311 MWe module) reduces costs and allows nuclear plants of various sizes (311 MWe and some integers) to be built economically.
Cost assessments taking into account the complete life cycle show that fast reactors can not be more expensive than the world's most used reactors - water-cooled reactors.
Liquid metal Na coolant
Unlike reactors that use relatively slow neutron (thermal) energies, fast neutron reactors require nuclear reactor coolants that do not moderate or block neutrons (such as water in LWRs) so that they have enough energy to break the actuatable but non-fissile actinic isotope. The core must also be compact and contain a small amount of material that may act as a possible neutron moderator. The metal sodium coolant (Na) has in many ways combined the most attractive properties for this purpose. In addition to not being a moderator of neutrons, the desired physical characteristics include:
- Low melting temperature
- Low vapor pressure
- High boiling temperature
- Excellent thermal conductivity
- Low viscosity
- Lightweight
- Thermal stability and radiation
Other benefits:
Material is abundant and low cost. Cleaning with chlorine produces table salt that is non-toxic. Compatible with other materials used in the core (does not react or dissolve stainless steel) so no special corrosion protection measures are required. Low pumping power (from light and low viscosity). Maintains free environmental oxygen (and water) by reacting with trace amounts to make sodium oxide or sodium hydroxide and hydrogen, thereby protecting other components of corrosion. Lightweight (low density) increases resistance to seismic inertial events (earthquakes.)
Weakness:
Extreme fire hazard with large amounts of air (oxygen) and spontaneous combustion with water, causing leakage of sodium and dangerous floods. This was the case at the Monju Nuclear Power Plant in an accident and fire in 1995. The reaction with water produces hydrogen which can become explosive. The sodium activation product (isotope) 24 Na releases dangerous energetic photons when the picture decays (but has a very short half-life for 15 hours). The reactor design stores 24 Na in the reactor pool and brings heat to power production using secondary sodium loops, adding costs for construction and maintenance.
The study was released by UChicago Argonne
History
Research on the reactor began in 1984 at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois. Argonne is part of the US Department of Energy's national laboratory system, and is operated on a contract by the University of Chicago.
Argonne previously had a branch campus called "Argonne West" in Idaho Falls, Idaho which is now part of the Idaho National Laboratory. In the past, on the branch campus, physicists from Argonne have built what is known as Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR II). Meanwhile, physicists at Argonne had drafted the IFR concept, and it was decided that EBR II would be converted to IFR. Charles Till, Canadian physicist from Argonne, is the head of the IFR project, and Yoon Chang is the deputy head. Until positioned in Idaho, while Chang is in Illinois.
With the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992, and the appointment of Hazel O'Leary as Secretary of Energy, there was pressure from the top to cancel IFR. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and O'Leary lead the opposition to the reactor, arguing that it will pose a threat to non-proliferation efforts, and that it is a continuation of the Clinch River Revolution Reactor Project that has been canceled by Congress.
At the same time, in 1994, Energy Minister O'Leary awarded the lead IFR scientist with $ 10,000 and a gold medal, with a quote stating his work to develop IFR technology providing "increased security, more efficient use of fuel and radioactive waste fewer. "
Opponents of the IFR also presented a report by the DOE Nuclear Security Office on the charges of former Argonne employees that Argonne has replied for raising safety concerns, as well as on the quality of research conducted on the IFR program. The report receives international attention, with striking differences in the scope it receives from major scientific publications. The British journal Nature contains the title of "Report backs whistleblower", and also notes the conflict of interest on the DOE panel section assessing IFR research. Instead, the article that appears in Science is titled "Is Argonne Whistleblower Really Blowing Smoke?". Remarkably, the article does not reveal that the Director of Argonne National Laboratories, Alan Schriesheim, is a member of the Board of Directors of the parent organization Science ", the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Despite support for the reactor at the time-Rep. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and US Senator Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL) and Paul Simon (D-IL), funds for the reactor were slashed, and finally canceled in 1994 by S.Amdt. 2127 to H.R. 4506, at a cost greater than the end. When this was brought to the attention of President Clinton, he said, "I know, this is a symbol." At this time Senator Kerry and the majority of democrats have turned to support the continuation of the program. The last count is 52 to 46 to end the program, with 36 republics and 16 democrats voting for suspension, while only 8 republics and 38 democrats choose to continue.
In 2001, as part of the Generation IV roadmap, the DOE commissioned a 242-person team of scientists from DOE, UC Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, ANL, LLNL, Toshiba, Westinghouse, Duke, EPRI and other agencies to evaluate 19 of the best reactor designs on 27 different criteria. IFR was ranked # 1 in their study which was released on April 9, 2002.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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