What is a nuclear breeding reactor?
breeding reactor is a type of nuclear core specially designed to create more fission material (nuclear fuel) than it consumes. Depending on the reactor breeding ratio, it can produce new fuel with higher or less speed. The ratio ratio is the number of new fission atoms created for each fissile event. The theoretical upper limit for breeding is 1.8, while most breeding reactors are designed to produce almost enough fission material as they consume. We hope that breeding reactors will replace the current generation of conventional reactors, as progress in nuclear energy continues.
Most traditional nuclear reactors create additional fuel during operation and increase fuel efficiency. As the nuclear industry evolves, these conditions were pushed above and higher, leading to better fuel economies. There are still technical obstacles to develop cost -effective breeding reactors, but breeders can claim a number of advantages that traditionsThey cannot. The largest is that after the initial load of enriched uranium or plutonia, the reactor breeder can then be powered only by the periodic load of the non -griched (natural) uranium or (in another type of breeding reactor) Thorium. Thorium is about four times more abundant in the Earth's crust than uranium, represents a very low risk of weapon and creates nuclear waste that reduces the intensity at the background level much faster than waste from a conventional plant.
One of the concerns about breeding reactors is that the production of nuclear fuel prepared for a bomb, such as plutonium, creates a risk of nuclear weapons. This problem is solved by the stage of nuclear pre -workment, where other elements such as Curium and Neptunium are added to Plutonium. This form of processing has no effect on the use of plutonia as a reactor fuel, but makes it extremely impressed to use the material to create an atomic bomb, even if it uses very muchSophisticated design.
Two types of breeding reactors were designed. The first, fast breeding reactor, uses the initial charge of Plutonia fuel, then only requires natural uranium for energy. Of the fast breeders, several prototypes were built and Japan, China, Korea and Russia are committed by funds for further development. The second type of breeding reactor is the thermal breeder reactor, which uses the initial charge of the fuel enriched uranium, then using only thoria. Reactors of thermal breeders have been built only on a small scale, with India taking the first steps to develop an industrial scale and began in 2006.