Reactor that burns depleted fuel attracts
By Peter Behr of ClimateWire

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

After years in a status closer to science fiction than reality, the  
traveling wave nuclear reactor is emerging as a potential "game  
changer," according to a U.S. Department of Energy official. It helps  
that the reactor is the product of a team of top scientists backed by  
the deep pockets of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

This reactor (pdf) works something like a cigarette. A chain reaction  
is launched in one end of a closed cylinder of spent uranium fuel,  
creating a slow-moving "deflagration," a wave of nuclear fission  
reactions that keeps breeding neutrons as it makes way through the  
container, keeping the self-sustaining reaction going.

And it goes and goes, perhaps for 100 years, said former Bechtel Corp.  
physicist John Gilleland. He heads TerraPower LLC, a private research  
team based outside Seattle that is pursuing the traveling wave reactor  
design.

"We believe we've developed a new type of nuclear reactor that can  
represent a nearly infinite supply of low-cost energy, carbon-free  
energy for the world," Gilleland said in a presentation. If it can be  
built, a commercial version of the reactor is 15 years away or more,  
Gilleland acknowledged. But that could keep its development in step  
with the long-range policy and business investment decisions that lie  
ahead for the future of nuclear power fuel cycles and reactor designs.

The venture has caught the Energy Department's eye.

"We've just been introduced to the idea," said Warren "Pete" Miller,  
DOE's assistant secretary for nuclear energy, who mentioned the  
project in his comments to last week's 2010 National Electricity Forum  
in Washington, D.C. "That's one innovation that could make a  
tremendous difference" for nuclear power.

"These are game changers if they can be deployed," said Miller, a  
former official at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Massachusetts  
Institute of Technology's Technology Review magazine chose the  
traveling wave reactor last year as one of 10 emerging technologies  
with the highest potential impact.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor

TWRs are also capable, in principle, of reusing their own fuel. The  
used metal fuel from TWRs will still contain a high fissile content.  
Recast and reclad into new driver pellets without separations, this  
recycled fuel could be used to start fission in additional TWRs, thus  
displacing the need to enrich uranium altogether.


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