The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) is a 400 MW thermal, liquid sodium cooled, nuclear test reactor owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. It does not generate electricity. It is situated in the 400 Area of the Hanford Site, which is located in the state of Washington.
The construction of the FFTF was completed in 1978, and the first reaction took place in 1980. From April 1982 to April 1992 it operated as a national research facility to test various aspects of commercial reactor design and operation, especially relating to breeder reactors. The FFTF is not a breeder reactor itself, but rather a sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor, as the name suggests.
It is stated on the site dedicated to the FFTF, that it tested "advanced nuclear fuels, materials, components, nuclear power plant operations and maintenance protocols, and reactor safety designs."
By 1993, the number of uses to which the reactor could be put was diminishing, so the decision was taken in December of that year to deactivate it. Over the next three years, the active parts of the facility were gradually halted, fuel rods removed and stored in above-ground dry storage vessels. However, in January 1997, the DOE ordered that the reactor be maintained in a standby condition, pending a decision as to whether to incorporate it into the US Government's tritium production program, for both medical and fusion research.
Since then, due to legal wrangling, decommissioning has been stopped and restarted at intervals. In December 2001, the deactivation was continued, after the DOE found that it was not needed for tritium production. Work was halted in 2002 when court action was begun. As of May 2003, deactivation has continued, and it is currently in a state of cold standby.
In May 2005 the core support basket was drilled to drain the remaining sodium coolant, which effectively made the reactor unusable. However, a technical study is being pursued with regard to repairing the reactor.[ citation needed ] As the coolant was drained, the system was filled with high purity argon gas to prevent corrosion. The support basket is an unpressurized area, and the reactor core has not yet been breached (as of June 2006).[ citation needed ]
The reason for renewed interest in the FFTF is that the global atmosphere with regard to nuclear energy has changed, and the US is pursuing nuclear power once again. To build a similar facility would cost an estimated $2–5 billion.[ citation needed ]
In April, 2006, the FFTF was honored by the American Nuclear Society as a "National Nuclear Historic Landmark". Achievements cited include:
The probable successor to the FFTF will be the Versatile Test Reactor, which will roughly have the same size and capabilities as future test reactor and which will be built at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho or Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee in the 2020s.
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid, which in turn runs through steam turbines. These either drive a ship's propellers or turn electrical generators' shafts. Nuclear generated steam in principle can be used for industrial process heat or for district heating. Some reactors are used to produce isotopes for medical and industrial use, or for production of weapons-grade plutonium. As of 2022, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports there are 422 nuclear power reactors and 223 nuclear research reactors in operation around the world.
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors. The reprocessed uranium, also known as the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economical when uranium supply is low and prices are high. Nuclear reprocessing may extend beyond fuel and include the reprocessing of other nuclear reactor material, such as Zircaloy cladding.
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A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons, as opposed to slow thermal neutrons used in thermal-neutron reactors. Such a fast reactor needs no neutron moderator, but requires fuel that is relatively rich in fissile material when compared to that required for a thermal-neutron reactor. Around 20 land based fast reactors have been built, accumulating over 400 reactor years of operation globally. The largest of this was the Superphénix Sodium cooled fast reactor in France that was designed to deliver 1,242 MWe. Fast reactors have been intensely studied since the 1950s, as they provide certain advantages over the existing fleet of water cooled and water moderated reactors. These are:
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States, located in the state of South Carolina on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River. It lies 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons. It covers 310 square miles (800 km2) and employs more than 10,000 people.
The integral fast reactor is a design for a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons and no neutron moderator. IFR would breed more fuel and is distinguished by a nuclear fuel cycle that uses reprocessing via electrorefining at the reactor site.
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Generation IVreactors are nuclear reactor design technologies that are envisioned as successors of generation III reactors. The Generation IV International Forum (GIF) – an international organization that coordinates the development of generation IV reactors – specifically selected six reactor technologies as candidates for generation IV reactors. The designs target improved safety, sustainability, efficiency, and cost. The World Nuclear Association in 2015 suggested that some might enter commercial operation before 2030. In December 2023, China claimed to have begun commercial operations on a Gen IV reactor.
In applications such as nuclear reactors, a neutron poison is a substance with a large neutron absorption cross-section. In such applications, absorbing neutrons is normally an undesirable effect. However, neutron-absorbing materials, also called poisons, are intentionally inserted into some types of reactors in order to lower the high reactivity of their initial fresh fuel load. Some of these poisons deplete as they absorb neutrons during reactor operation, while others remain relatively constant.
SEFOR was an experimental fast breeder reactor located in Cove Creek Township, Washington County, near Strickler, in northwest Arkansas. The site consisted of a 20-Megawatt (thermal), Sodium-Cooled Test Reactor, a Shop Building, an Operations Building, a Maintenance Shed, and an Electrical Transformer yard. It operated from 1969 to 1972 when the program ended. It was then acquired by the University of Arkansas, in hopes that it could be used as a research facility in 1975, but it never happened. The University maintained the decommissioned site until finally receiving federal funds to dismantle the facility in 2016, which completed in 2019.
The N-Reactor was a water/graphite-moderated nuclear reactor constructed during the Cold War and operated by the U.S. government at the Hanford Site in Washington; it began production in 1963.
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The SNR-300 was a fast breeder sodium-cooled nuclear reactor built near the town of Kalkar, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The reactor was completed but never taken online. SNR-300 was to output 327 megawatts. The project cost about 7 billion Deutsche Mark. The site is now the location of a theme park, Wunderland Kalkar, which incorporates much of the power plant buildings into the scenery.
The Hallam Nuclear Power Facility (HNPF) in Nebraska was a 75 MWe sodium-cooled graphite-moderated nuclear power plant built by Atomics International and operated by Consumers Public Power District of Nebraska. It was built in tandem with and co-located with a conventional coal-fired power station, the Sheldon Power Station. The facility featured a shared turbo generator that could accept steam from either heat source, and a shared control room.
The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) is a 500 MWe fast breeder nuclear reactor presently being constructed at Kalpakkam, India. The Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) is responsible for the design of this reactor. The facility builds on the decades of experience gained from operating the lower power Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR). Originally planned to be commissioned in 2010, the construction of the reactor suffered from multiple delays. As of December 2022, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor was expected for completion in 2024(i.e. 20 years after the project was initially started). The numerous delays have made the project costlier over time and the project currently holds an infamous record of being the longest under-construction nuclear reactor project in the world.
Hybrid nuclear fusion–fission is a proposed means of generating power by use of a combination of nuclear fusion and fission processes.
The BN-800 reactor is a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor, built at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. The reactor is designed to generate 880 MW of electrical power. The plant was considered part of the weapons-grade Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement signed between the United States and Russia, with the reactor being part of the final step for a plutonium-burner core The plant reached its full power production in August 2016. According to Russian business journal Kommersant, the BN-800 project cost 140.6 billion rubles.
Robert Louis (Bob) Ferguson was a nuclear-trained physicist and a 60-year veteran in the field of nuclear energy. He was best known for being appointed the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Programs for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by the first Energy Secretary, James Schlesinger, serving from 1978 to 1980 during President Jimmy Carter's administration.
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was a project by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a fast-neutron test reactor by 2026. Funding for the project was scrapped in 2022
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