Fast Reactors and Accelerator Driven Systems Knowledge Base

Conference Article: BNFL's view of the thorium development programme

Wilson, P.D. (British Nuclear Fuels plc, Sellafield, Seascale (United Kingdom))

Abstract

The value of an innovation depends on the urgency of problems or deficiencies that it is intended to overcome, on its effectiveness in doing so, and inversely on the costs and any new difficulties that it raises. Thus industry sees no net benefit in thorium simply as a substitute for uranium except perhaps in certain areas such as India, since a general shortage is not expected for several decades. Interest is directed more at the property of thorium in generating hardly any transuranic elements apart from a little neptunium. Using it would minimize additions to inventories of these elements, or increase net rates of consumption in schemes to incinerate them.

view the full text of this article (9 pages, format: PDF, size= 682kB)

key words: bnfl; proliferation; radioactive waste management; reactor safety; spent fuels; thorex process; thorium cycle
Reference:
Proceedings of three IAEA meetings held in Vienna in 1997, 1998 and 1999
International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)
IAEA-TECDOC--1319, pp:60-68