On the Fast Breeder Reactor

Weapon-Grade Plutonium Production Potential in the Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor

India is building a 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, which is scheduled to be operational by 2010. India has refused to accept international safeguards on this facility, raising concerns that the plutonium produced in its uranium blankets might be used to make nuclear weapons. Based on neutronics calculations for a detailed threedimensional model of the reactor, we estimate that up to 14...

Compromising Safety: Design Choices and Severe Accident Possibilities in India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor

India and Fast Breeder Reactors

India has long pursued a fast breeder program, motivated in part by the availability of only poor quality uranium resources within the country. But progress so far has been disappointing, with only one test reactor having been constructed and having a chequered operating history. The larger Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor that is being constructed has a design that compromises safety and will pr...

Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors

A study of future energy requirements and of the potential of various energy sources (coal, oil, gas, nuclear power, hydropower and solar energy) indicates that the contribution to be made by nuclear fission, now competitive with conventional energy sources, will grow steadily over the next few decades. Whereas the amount of fuel which has to be fabricated each year for the operation of a nucle...

Advanced Fast Reactor:

The AFR concept is being developed at Argonne National Laboratory, as an extension of earlier work done on the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). That work was undertaken specifically to resolve some pressing technical issues in safety, waste management, nonproliferation, and economics. Also important, however, was the fundamental fact that the efficient utilization of uranium resources is crucial to...