DOE to Invest up to $7.3M for 'Deep-Burn' Gas-Reactor Tech R&D

May 7, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) valued at $7.3 million for universities, commercial entities and national laboratories with expertise in the concept of nuclear fuel "Deep-Burn" in which plutonium and higher transuranics recycled from spent nuclear fuel are destroyed.

The funding opportunity seeks to establish the technological foundations that will support a very-high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor (VHTR) - one of the prototype reactors being researched/developed under the DOE Generation IV Nuclear power program - in the nuclear fuel cycle.

The work under this FOA will be carried out in two parts requiring separate proposals: advanced modeling and simulation capability for VHTR development and design; and transuranic management capabilities of the deep-burn VHTR.

"The Deep-Burn concept is particularly attractive because it employs the reactor design that is used for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant program [NGNP], with the potential for highly efficient electricity and process heat production," Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said.

The transuranic elements are the hottest and most radiotoxic chemical elements in used nuclear fuel that require disposal in a waste repository.

In Deep-Burn, the transuranics from used light water reactor fuel are recycled into coated-particle fuel and "burned" in a VHTR while producing energy in the form of process heat and electricity. The term Deep-Burn is used because of the VHTR ability to reach very high fuel burnups (up to 65% of initial fuel), resulting in very efficient use of the fuel and a high degree of destruction of the transuranics.

The primary mission of the NGNP is production of high-temperature heat for use as a source of process heat or generation of electricity. A further goal of this FOA is to enable a quantitative assessment of the scope, cost and schedule implications of extending the NGNP mission in the future to destruction of plutonium and other transuranics, said DOE.

The Deep-Burn R&D effort will be coordinated with the ongoing Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) programs to ensure synergism and to avoid duplication of efforts. It is also part of the DOE Generation IV Nuclear power program which aims to further the fundamental R&D to ensure the viability of the next-generation of nuclear energy systems.

Responses to the FOA are due to DOE May 22, 2008. DOE anticipates announcing the selection later this year. Applications must be submitted through Grants.gov. The full FOA is available on the DOE Industry Interactive Procurement System web site.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy.