Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
1/22/2016
A developer of small modular reactor technology announced this week that its reactors could feasibly be powered by mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. NuScale Power said a study commissioned by the U.K. National Nuclear Laboratory concluded that the company’s small modular reactor technology can effectively be used for plutonium disposition “with minimal effect on the reactor’s design and operation.”
The study found that a plant with 12 NuScale power modules – which could be fueled by either a light-water reactor or MOX fuel – “could consume a 100-metric ton stockpile of discharged plutonium in roughly 40 years” if it uses entirely MOX cores, according to the Portland, Ore.-based company. During this time, the facility “would generate approximately 200 million megawatt-hours of carbon free electricity,” it said.
NuScale Chief Commercial Officer Mike McGough said by telephone that the study confirms such a plant would operate “exactly as it will with uranium oxide fuel.” He said the technology is still under development and that the first NuScale facility will not be operational until 2024. The first plant, he added, will be built for ownership by the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a consortium of 45 utilities, and will likely be located on-site at the Idaho National Laboratory.
NuScale is the winner of the second round of a Department of Energy cost-sharing program to develop nuclear small modular reactor technology. The company has spent just over $100 million of the $217 billion it was awarded to develop its technology, which is part of the nearly $400 million total the company has spent on the technology so far since 2000, McGough said.
McGough said the U.K. government “is particularly interested in finding ways over time to reduce the country’s stockpile of plutonium materials that have been generated in the last 40 years of their civilian nuclear power operations.” The new study shows, then, that the company’s technology “can provide part of the solution to the disposition of that stockpile,” he said.
The company said the use of MOX fuel is advantageous because it degrades the isotopic composition of plutonium, “making it much less attractive from a proliferation viewpoint,” and helps reduce the demand for enriched uranium by improving fuel resource utilization. It also noted that several countries such as Germany, France, and Japan, reprocess plutonium into MOX fuel for civil nuclear reactors.
