Introduction
Since the early days of nuclear power the idea of small and medium sized reactors has been considered but the general trend has always gone toward larger units, mainly because of the lower specific cost of energy, due to the economy of scale. However in more recent times Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) started to be appealing because of some advantages of theirs: mainly their convenience in terms of initial capital cost and proliferation resistance, the safety level they can reach, an easier decommissioning procedure and their adaptability to medium and low power (remote) electrical grids.
Recently, Belgium, Italy, Romania and the USA have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the development, demonstration and commercialization of lead-cooled small modular reactors (SMR-LFRs). The newly formed collaboration has outlined a clear vision, based on a step-wise approach to demonstration, beginning with a small-size reactor to demonstrate the technological and engineering aspects of the commercial SMR-LFR to be built in SCK CEN’s site. This is considered by the Government an investment on the nuclear power of the future, being SMR-LFRs one of the technologies which can make a contribution to the energy mix by 2050.
In order to implement a future SMR-LFR reactor fleet in Belgium, several technical, economical, and environmental analyses of the possible advanced fuel cycle scenario are needed and, to that end, fuel cycle simulators are necessary. SCK CEN has been continuously developing ANICCA (Advanced Nuclear Inventory Cycle Code) since 2012. It is conceived to address the different challenges that arise at the different fuel cycle stages, ranging from the front end (i.e., mining, enrichment, fuel fabrication and irradiation) all the way to the back end (i.e., interim storages, reprocessing and final repositories), in order to help policy makers in Belgium (and also at a regional level) to shape the future of nuclear energy in a sustainable manner. The code has become versatile enough to include different reactor technologies while simulating closed scenarios, and has been verified in international benchmarks for cases that include different fuel types of light water reactors (LWRs) and even accelerator driven systems. Therefore, ANICCA shares the same common interests from other state-of-the-art computational tools that are used around the world to solve the different issues relevant to the nuclear fuel cycle, and will be used to perform the above-mentioned analyses.
Thus, to answer the mandate by the Government to research in Partitioning & Transmutation (P&T) and Partitioning & Conditioning (P&C), and to study the future implementation of a SMR-LFR fleet in Belgium, SCK CEN is proposing a new advanced fuel cycle scenario study. In this scenario, several assumptions are taken regarding the present Belgian PWR fleet, that require the update of the current reference Belgian fuel cycle scenario in ANICCA.
In previous MSc Theses, Belgium reference scenario was updated to reflect the extension of two of Belgium’s reactors until 2036. Moreover, ANICCA’s irradiation module has been recently updated with ML prediction capabilities for LWR fuel and is currently being updated for SMR-LFR MOX fuel.
The objective of this work is to follow-up these works. ANICCA’s ML irradiation module will be verified for SMR-LFR MOX fuel predictions. Afterwards, the new advanced Belgian fuel cycle scenario study will be implemented. Different advanced fuel cycle strategies will be studied, with the introduction of SMR-LFRs or ADS. Sensitivity analyses to different technology options and parameters will be carried out. This work will assist decision-makers in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of different strategies for a Belgian SMR-LFR nuclear fleet evolution and then proposing possible evolution trajectories for the nuclear industry according to constraints from physics, economics, industry, etc.
Objectives
This project envisages a nine month workload where the following tasks must be achieved:
- familiarization with fuel cycle calculations and ANICCA;
- verification of the ML SMR-LFR MOX fuel implementation in ANICCA;
- simulation of new advanced Belgian fuel cycle scenario;
- sensitivity analysis to different scenario options;
- creation of an improved computational scheme;
- and, production of scientific outputs.
Le niveau de diplôme minimum du candidat
- Academic bachelor
Les connaissances préexistantes nécessaires
- Physics
Nuclear Engineering