Some experts say that it is safe, efficient, and a major step toward U.S. energy independence. Others maintain that it is too dangerous and costly. In any event, fierce controversy swirls around
The breeder reactor project
Breeder reactor. Artist's rendering shows the 375-MW Clinch River plant in Oak Ridge,
Tenn.
On the evening of Sept. 21, 1982, Percy Brewington, Jr., acting director of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project (CRBRP, Oak Ridge, Tenn.) for the U.S. Department of Energy, picked up a chain saw and brought down the first tree for harvest at the project's 1364-acre site. That same day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had dissolved an injunction prohibiting the commencement of site preparation work. The court order was one of a series of ups and downs that have characterized the project ever since the federal government's 1972 decision to construct a liquid metal fast breeder reactor ( L M F B R ) demonstration plant at Oak Ridge—a reactor that would produce 1.4 times more fissionable plutonium fuel than it consumes (ES&T, October 1981, p. 1132). Other events include votes in Congress
Some experts familiar with the project have likened it to "The Perils of Pauline" of early moving picture days. In that series, the heroine appears ready to meet her doom, only to be dramatically rescued by the hero at the 11th hour and 59th minute. The breeder reactor project so far seems to have led a similarly charmed life. But recently one of the breeder project's principal rescuers, Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), announced that he will not stand up for reelection to the U.S. Senate. What effect his departure may have on the project's future remains to be seen. However, conventional wisdom has it that the effort would most likely be set back.
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Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 9, 1983
to stop all breeder funding, only to have these votes reversed subsequently. President Jimmy Carter made it a matter of first priority to "kill" the project, but was unable to do so, despite the power of his office. As things stand now, the breeder project could lose its funding after the end of this month, unless the private sector comes up with more than $1 billion. Unlikely though it may seem, electric utilities may yet commit themselves to providing these funds. In fact, in late June, a 10-utility task force devised a plan to raise $1 billion through a 30-year bond issue and certain other investment "vehicles" to be paid off through sales of the breeder's electricity. If sales fall short, the federal government would guarantee the difference. At the time, the plan was considered a long shot for congressional approval.
A picture of uncertainty The history and future of the breeder reactor present a picture of uncertainty; the project has been a
0013-936X/83/0916-0406A$01.50/0
©
1983 American Chemical Society
subject of intense controversy from the beginning. Proponents see it as a major step toward energy independence. They maintain that the cost, which they acknowledge has risen considerably faster than the inflation rate, will eventually be paid back not only in domestic energy independence but in technical know-how. They even foresee eventual profitability of this electric power source on a commercial scale and add that it can be safer than today's nuclear light water reactors (LWRs), for example. On the other hand, critics of the project point out that the breeder would produce plutonium and be cooled by liquid sodium. Possibilities for accidental or deliberate harm to the environment, or conversion of plutonium-239 (^^Pu) for use in weapons, rather than as fuel, are greatly enhanced. Critics also argue that if and when the breeder is completed, it would constitute an outmoded technology and add that several foreign countries are ahead of the U.S. in
breeder technology (Table 1). CRBRP detractors decry the costs involved, which they maintain will never be recovered no matter how efficiently the breeder operates. Capital costs were estimated at $700 million in 1972. They are now put at $3.6 billion, upwards of five times the original forecast. Indeed, a recent U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report suggests that the 1972 number could be increased by a factor of more than 12, to $8.8 billion. Alvin Weinberg, director of the Institute for Energy Analysis of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, vehemently disagrees with GAO's $8.8 billion projection. "Serious errors were made in GAO's estimate," he told ES&T. Spokesmen for the breeder project say that GAO made assumptions about inflation, operation and maintenance costs, and electricity demand and prices projected far into the future—as much as 37 years—and included $3.9 billion of imputed interest
costs associated with the federal debt. Sodium loops The phrase "liquid metal" in the 375-MW LMFBR refers to the liquid sodium used to cool the reactor and to transfer heat to water, which will produce steam to run the electric generators (Figure 1). Project critics express fears of intense fires that would result if the sodium ever came into contact with air or water. Breeder engineers counter that "sodium oxidizes slowly; there are no intense fires. Experience with the BN-350 [a 350-MW breeder at Fort Shevchenko on the Caspian Sea, U.S.S.R.] showed that the sodiumwater interactions could be 'lived with.' " The word "fast" means that neutrons in the reactor core move rapidly—about 7600 km/s, as opposed to 2.24 km/s in a slow breeder, or light water reactor. Finally, the term "breeder" represents the "breeding" capability of the reactor to produce
TABLE 1
Breeders outside the U.S. a
Country
N a m e and location
France
Rapsodie
Germany (West)
Date of operation
Remarks
1967
Loop-type 6 c ; shutdown in 1982
250
1967
1973
Pool-type d
1200
1977
1984 (planned)
Pool-type
e
KNK II, Karlsruhe
18
1966
1979
SNR-300, ' Kalkar
280
1972
1987 (planned)
SNR-2 s (planned)
1300
Japan
Monju, Tsuruga
U.S.S.R.
BOR-60, Ulyanovskaya, Dimitrovgrad
280
1990 (planned)
12
1969
BN-350, " Shevchenkovskaya, Shevchenko, on Caspian Sea
150
1973
Loop-type
BN-600, Beloyarskaya, near Sverdlovsk
600
1980
Pool-type
BN-1600 (planned) U.K.
Year o l order
40
Phénix, near Avignon Creys-Malville, "Superphénix," near Lyon
Net M W
Scotland Dounreay, Caithness, Scotland CDFR (planned)
1600 15 250
1959 1965
1975
1300
Note: In 40 countries outside the U.S., for nuclear reactors of all sorts, 207, representing 105 823 MW are in commercial operation; 163 (135 702 MW) are under construction; 13 (12 574 MW) are on order; and 172 (159 963 MW) are in some firm stage of planning. This represents a total of 555 units (414 062 MW), of which 15 are breeders. ° Status as of Dec. 3 1 , 1982, all liquid metal type 6 Uses sodium coolant loops as would LMFBR at Clinch River c Never actually generated electricity " Uses a pool design for the sodium coolant θ In collaboration with Belgium, Italy, West Germany, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands ' In collaboration with Belgium, The Netherlands, United Kingdom 9 In collaboration with France and Italy h Was planned also as a water desalination plant on the Caspian Sea; reportedly suffered sodium fires and explosions Source: Atomic Industrial Forum (for statistics)
Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 9, 1983
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more fissionable plutonium ("fPu) fuel than it uses, through the fast neutron bombardment of and absorption by uranium-238 (292U), the most abundant uranium isotope. çfU is not usable in LWRs because it is not fissionable. "fPu, derived from light water reactors, is the "match" necessary to start the breeder's chain reaction (Figure 2 and Table 2). As operations continue, other isotopes of Pu (240-242) can be used in the breeder. The 241 isotope is fissionable. The neutron-absorbing 240 and 242 isotopes are not; nevertheless, they increase the reactor's plutonium breeding ratio. Breeder experts point out that the presence of the nonfissionable isotopes renders the plutonium less desirable for weapons manufacture than plutonium from a low-fuel burnup reactor. The liquid sodium (Na) coolant, with a melting point of ~207 °F, enters the reactor at 730 ° F and leaves at 995 °F. Only a minuscule portion of the sodium is converted to the radioactive isotope ffNa—but that is another reason critics dislike the breeder. Weinberg reminded ES&T that the isotope's half-life is 14.8 h. The sodium is pumped through the primary loop, through the reactor itself, and then through the intermediate heat exchanger. Its heat is transferred to the sodium in a second, or intermediate loop, and that sodium is pumped
PUM* 1
Weinberg: "Let's finish it and learn from it" through the intermediate sodium pump. The sodium in the secondary loop, in turn, transfers its heat to the water-steam component, and the steam drives the electric generator (Figure 3). Other advantages of liquid sodium are its high boiling point, obviating the need for pressurization of the breeder reactor's coolant, and the fact that its heat brings the steam that drives the generator to 900 °F. This makes the breeder more thermally efficient than a reactor where the steam is at 500 ° F, such as in an LWR. [In a coal-fired power plant, the steam driving the generators is normally at 925-1000 °F, engineers of Potomac Electric Power Company (Washington, D.C.) told ES&T]. The relatively short half-life of
whatever amount of ?|Na that there may be makes it possible to remove, repair, and reinstall the primary pump after as short a time as 12 days. Experience with such repairs was obtained at the Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-II, near Idaho Falls, Idaho. In operation since 1963, EBR-II is a follow-up to EBR-I (Arco, Idaho), operated by Argonne National Laboratory from 1951 to 1963 to prove breeder feasibility and test liquid sodium coolant technology. A third breeder was the Fermi reactor, operated in Michigan starting in 1963. Fermi suffered a partial core meltdown in 1968, resumed operations in 1971, and was subsequently taken out of service, principally for economic reasons. William Rolf, general manager of Project Management Corporation, a nonprofit organization responsible for the interests of utilities with respect to the CRBRP, addressed the possibility of liquid sodium coming into contact with air or water: "First of all, the sodium coolant systems are equipped with the most up-to-date leak detectors and guard vessels. Any sodium leak would trigger a shutdown of that system while the sodium level is maintained high enough to ensure core cooling. Sodium overflow vessels also help to maintain proper levels. "The cooling system has 'cold traps' designed to make certain that oxygen
FIGURE 1
Liquid metal fast breeder reactor
Steam Containment building Control rods Generator
Na-
Νa
Na
Turbine , Cooling water
Na Core
Heat exchanger •Water
Steam generator After Kerry Ο Banton. Environ. Sci. Technol. 1981, 75. 1134
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Environ. Sci. Technol., V o l . 17, No. 9, 1983
Condenser
levels in the sodium never exceed 10 ppm," Rolf pointed out. An advantage of oxygen-free liquid sodium is that given the noncorrosive "atmosphere" it creates, as compared with conditions created by a water coolant, it cannot corrode (oxidize) metals such as iron. He said that sodium's noncorrosivity was proven during 20 years of operating the EBR-II plant. This absence of corrosion offers a side benefit of reducing the radiation exposure of operation and maintenance personnel to about 1% of that experienced at an LWR. Rolf said that these data were obtained from French nuclear scientists based on 10 years of experience with the 250-MW Phénix breeder as well as on their data from LWRs. The project's present status As of June, project research and development was said to be 98% complete and plant design 90% finished. Expenditures on the CRBRP totaled $1.469 billion. The value of major components completed and in storage or undergoing tests was almost $360 million, according to Breeder Reactor Corporation (BRC, Oak Ridge, Tenn.), the 753-utility consortium helping to finance the project. The plan is to complete and start operating the reactor beginning in 1989. This will be subject to congressional funding, the outcome of further Nuclear Regulatory Commission ( N R C ) licensing actions, and any present or future litigation. Why did costs escalate at a rate in excess of that of inflation? N R C Commissioner Victor Gilinsky offered ES& Τ several explanations. First of all, increasing interest rates may have played an important role, just as they
controlled by project participants," also received blame. In discussing these cost overruns, Rolf was referring to a report by DOE's inspector general ("Audit of the Clinch River Breeder Plant Project," U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Inspector Gen eral, DOE/IG-0185, July 21, 1982).
Rolf: explained safety features of the sodium cooling system
did in other portions of the economy. Second, costs for certain materials, construction, and labor moved upward. Gilinsky, who acknowledges his lack of enthusiasm for the CRBRP, also sug gested that original cost estimates may have been made low "in order to avoid 'spooking' members of Congress who must appropriate funds for such projects." Moreover, when the original cost estimates were made, those who made them "hadn't anticipated a lot of things, and promised too much," Gil insky said. Taking issue with Gilinsky, Rolf cited cost increases, now put at $936 million, which he charges are "the di rect result of delays caused by the na tional policy debate initiated in 1977 by President Carter. In April 1977, the Carter administration requested that the environmental hearings [on the CRBRP] be 'indefinitely postponed.' Hearings were restarted in August 1982, and successfully completed in January 1983. The net result was a five-year delay and corresponding cost increases." Circumstances "external to the project," which "could not be
Arguments pro The present cost estimate for the CRBRP "breaks my heart," said Alvin Weinberg, a veteran of the World War II Manhattan Project. "But since we've gone this far, we should finish the reactor and learn from it. If solar and fusion energy make sense, so does the breeder, because of its potential for 'inexhaustible' energy. "The U.S. erred not to go ahead with Clinch River 12 years ago, and by interposing the FFTF [Fast-Flux Test Facility, a reactor at Hanford, Wash., which tests breeder fuel but does not itself breed] instead." Weinberg continued, "Let's finish the reactor. Yes, it's grievously expensive, but it may still pay off if it is followed by commercial breeders." On the other hand, Gilinsky argued that the FFTF "did make sense, because one can test different fuel designs, and not choose one too early, especially when there is no urgency to do so." Looking to the future, Weinberg observed, "We may not need inex haustible energy for another 75 years. But 75 years is not all that long a time for developing prime energy. And if we will be deploying commercial breeders 75 years from now, and plan them to last 30 years, we must run our dem onstration reactor now, so we will learn over the next 30 years. That's why it's a disgrace that the Clinch River
FIGURE 2
TABLE 2
Starting up the breeder
a
Uranium-to-plutonium reaction
c
Material 2
!?PU
Core*
199.7
*£&*
34.0
9 |PU
2
l|u
239p
1468
*£Pu 2 4
Blanket Inner Radial
238,, 92u 239p 94ru
3.4 7.6
16.7
25.7
238.1 92 U
3476
Total d
5188.7 8269.7 12 706.7
8253
Heat
12 681
a
Weight (in kg) necessary to start up a breeder reactor 6 Where fuel is placed c Where most of the 2 f JU to be converted to plutonium is placed d Heavy metals
Heat
Source: Breeder Reactor Corporation
. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 9, 1983
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FIGURE 3
Breeder reactor heat transport and power generation
Primary sodium pump (33 500 gpm)
905 °F 936 CF
900 Τ Turbine generator
1450 psig
1535 psig Superheater Steam drum
995 °F 468 °F
730 e F J Re actor / 975 MW,a •
Condenser 288 Τ
Intermediate
Deaerator
Evaporators
heat
101 °F
Demineralizer
exchanger Intermediate sodium pump (29 500 gpm)
651 "F Topping heater One of three sets of systems and components shown
Primary sodium system
•Intermediate sodium system
Feedwater heaters
Steam system
a
Mw t megawatts thermal power Source: U.S. Department of Energy
breeder has been delayed for so long." Another argument advanced in support of the CRBRP has been that supplies of low-cost natural uranium, such as that used in the LWR and other once-through "burner" reactors, are limited and would be enormously extended with the LMFBR. Moreover, as Rolf explained, there is a stockpile of 2|fU (up to 3 Χ 105 metric tons) ready to use in the breeder immedi ately. It is made as a by-product of 2 9|U separation for "burner" reactors, submarines, and weapons. Rolf esti mates the total current value of the stockpiled 2g^J at a mind-boggling $60 trillion. All of that uranium could yield upwards of 2 Χ 105 metric tons of 2 #Pu for use in both breeder and burner reactors, he points out. Still other arguments for the project include the nearly $1.5 billion already spent, equipment procured, and the more than 2000 technical, scientific, and administrative people trained for the CRBRP, all of which would be lost if the project does not go forward. In addition, in the late 1970s, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and British nuclear power authorities jointly announced a technology called 410A
Environ. Sci. Technol., V o l . 17, No. 9, 1 9 8 3
CIVEX, which they said would pro duce plutonium of sufficient quality to fuel burner and breeder reactors, but not pure enough to be convertible to weapons grade except with almost in surmountable technical difficulty. Arguments con One major argument against the breeder reactor is its accelerating capital cost. Indeed, if the cost esca lates much further, one might expect that the present strong pressures to discontinue the project will become even greater, regardless of what may theoretically be learned if the LMFBR
GHinsky: "It turns out that there's plenty of uranium"
were to be completed and operated. In June, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee balked at providing $270 million to continue construction of the project during fiscal year 1984 unless the private sector would furnish at least $800 million. Opponents also are very unhappy at the prospects of increasing amounts of 2 ç|Pu that a breeder would produce. First of all, plutonium is toxic. Some experts believe, for example, that an extremely small amount of plutonium inhaled or entering the body through breaks in the skin could readily cause lung cancer, tumors at other sites, or other toxic symptoms. The toxicity of plutonium serves as a basis for critics' fears that terrorists may try to obtain it and threaten to contaminate, say, a given city's air with plutonium aerosols, or actually do so (Weinberg's comment to ES& Τ is that this is "pretty remote; botulism would be a much easier weapon"). Another fear is that terrorists may steal or divert 2 ||Pu for weapons manufacture. Some opponents also suggest that if such happenings are to be prevented, security precautions might have to be taken at the expense of certain civil liberties. They add that
FIGURE 4
Breeder fuel cycle
Me 0.7% ^ U
Enrichment
Uranium mining/milling
3.5%
Tailings stockpile
Blanket element fabrication
>99.8% 2 | | u qpU
0.8%
Liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR)
•99.8% 2 j^U 2
g|u
Recycle Pu for LWRs and breeders
Fuel reprocessing Fuel fabrication
Light water reactor (LWR)
'• Shaft ."-;
' Salt
Storage '·' W w Waste isolation
Source: U S . Department of Energy
diversion of fuel could occur during its transport to and from reactors, at reactors, or at reprocessing plants. And with an LMFBR, there must be reprocessing in order to recover or recycle plutonium (Figure 4). Kerry O'Banion, formerly of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Calif.) and now with the U.S. General Services Administration, has pointed out that the whole justification for the breeder's existence is that it produces—theoretically—more 2 ^ P u than it uses (ES& T, October 1981, p. 1132). But could the EPRI/British CIVEX system prevent breeder plutonium use in bombs? "Yes," said Gilinsky, "//the plutonium is recycled in less than one year. And no one will recycle this fuel that quickly. The special radioactive isotope that is left in to make it so difficult to fabricate the plutonium into weapons decays with a half-life of about one year." Quoting a 1980 report by the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation Working Group that addressed the issue of proliferation, Rolf said that "the diversion risks encountered in the various steps of the breeder cycle present no greater difficulty than those
of the L W R with a uranium-plutonium recycle, or even with a oncethrough cycle, in the longer term. Thus," Rolf continued, "we are left with the choice of having other countries that are developing breeder plants set the rules for world use of plutonium, if we drop out of breeder development." Fast breeder critics also are uneasy about the use of liquid sodium as a coolant. Sodium is extremely reactive chemically with air and water. If for some reason one or more of the liquid sodium loops failed and the sodium escaped into air or water, the resultant reactions could under the right conditions have flame temperatures hot enough to melt stainless steel and reactor materials. Rolf says that these "right" conditions cannot occur in a breeder reactor. O'Banion says that a sodium coolant failure could lead to a breach in containment and to a mobilization of activation products through the oxidation of structural materials. Also, in the absence of cooling by sodium, and given the increased reactivity and higher heat in a breeder than in a burner (because of "fast" neutrons), a serious mishap in the core itself could
occur (ES&T, October 1981, p. 1134). Gilinsky suggested to ES&T that the argument that breeders are needed to enhance a dwindling supply of scarce uranium is no longer valid. The original contention, he said, was that by the year 2000, there would be 1200 gigawatts of total power generated by nuclear reactors in the U.S., which would rapidly consume the available 2 ||U. "As things turned out, only 10% or so of that gigawattage of nuclear plants will be built, and then we will be on a plateau," Gilinsky predicted. He added, "There is much more uranium than we first thought—enough for many decades—so incentives for the CRBRP are reduced. We also thought that the price of uranium would go so high that plutonium would compete, but just the opposite happened. And reprocessing costs are about 10 times more than we estimated they would be." Waste products A burner reactor, such as an LWR, produces irradiation and waste products that must eventually be handled and disposed of somewhere. So does the breeder. To be sure, plutonium E n v i r o n . S c i . T e c h n o l . , V o l . 17, No. 9, 1 9 8 3
411A
( 2 9|Pu) would not be a component, since it would be recovered and reused in burners and breeders. But there are other elements— transuranium "actinides" such as 2 3 238 ^ ^ , 2 4 1 ^ 3 A m , and 242·2& Cm 9 |N p , (americium and curium, respectively), as well as nonactinide 'gC, f^Kr, 'fjl, and 'liXe. O'Banion has described waste from the reprocessing plant as an acidic liquid that must decay radioactively in tanks for several years before it can be vitrified and placed in long-term repositories (ES&T, Octo ber 1981,p. 1133). On the other hand, breeder propo nents point out that all of the actinides, of which plutonium is but one, can be consumed in a breeder. This would reduce the half-life of the waste iso topes from 105 y to less than a century, Rolf said. He added that a test capsule was sent from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the British Prototype Fast Reactor in 1979. It contained americium and curium to test the nu clear cross-section for use as fuel in breeder reactors. As for other prod ucts, such as 3gSr and 557Cs, "you get about the same types after reprocess ing as you do from the L W R , " Gilinsky said. "You don't get as much in the
way of uranium mine tailings, because you don't need to mine as much ura nium for breeders." But Rolf reminded ES& Τ that the amount of waste gen erated, and repository space therefore needed, is proportional to the energy generated by a reactor. He maintains that breeders are 15% more thermally efficient than LWRs, so there would be 15% less waste per unit of energy produced by a breeder than by an LWR. Will there be a U.S. breeder? When the question, "will the breeder be built in the U.S.?" is asked, the answer is that three have already been built in Idaho and Michigan. "It's funny, you know—civilian nuclear energy started with breeders," Gilinsky observed. "Remember that at the time of Enrico Fermi and the Man hattan Project and immediately there after, uranium was thought to be scarce. So the scientists of that era counseled, 'use all isotopes,' which meant that breeders would be neces sary. Who could tell at the time that this conventional wisdom concerning uranium would turn out not to be fact?" So perhaps the question should be rephrased: "will the Clinch River
breeder reactor be built?" It has its vigorous champions and vociferous opponents. It is vigorously supported by the present administration. And while its congressional support may appear to be weakening, a privatesector funding plan seemed to be de veloping as this went to press. Much money, time, and effort have gone into the LMFBR since 1972; a great deal of "hardware" has been procured; and several thousand jobs have been created. Moreover, if the project is abandoned, shutdown costs could be high. Government estimates range between $44.5 million and $1 billion. However, nuclear power in dustry experts speak about higher figures that could represent lawsuits by money-contributing utilities, site landscaping expenses, and firm con tracts for equipment that would be rendered useless. Balancing these and related factors against the powerful economic and political opposition pressures the CRBRP is facing, ES& Τ will make the "unabashed assessment" that, as seen from the vantage point of July 1983, the chances of the project going forward to successful completion stand at slightly higher than 50-50. —Julian Josephson
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Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 9, 1983
