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Bill Gates’ TerraPower Continues Talks About ‘Travelling Wave Reactor’ |
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Written by NucNet
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Wednesday, 07 April 2010 |
A US business venture funded partly by Bill Gates is looking for a partner to help it develop a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactor concept called the Travelling Wave Reactor (TWR), which can operate for up to 100 years without refuelling or removing any used fuel from the unit.
The company says it is in negotiations with Toshiba Corporation. At the end of March 2010, company officials also said they continue to meet with a variety of US and international organisations and governments to “listen, learn and discuss” future options for the TWR design.
TerraPower has not yet entered into agreements with any companies to build or operate the TWR, a March 24 statement said.
Toshiba, in the form of its ‘Super-Safe, Small and Simple’ (4S) 10-MW reactor design using sodium as a coolant and with a long-life core design, already has a reactor model which has essential elements in common with the TWR.
TerraPower says that by greatly simplifying the nuclear fuel cycle, TWRs could improve the cost, safety, social acceptability, and long-term sustainability of nuclear energy as a source of emissions-free electricity.
The TWR concept uses ideas that date back to the 1950s for using non-enriched or even depleted uranium-238 as a nuclear fuel, breed-burn core designs and the use of a deflagration.
Today’s nuclear power plants need a full core of fuel made from enriched uranium. The TWR, in contrast, initially contains only a small amount of enriched uranium, which is used to kick off the chain reaction through a core of depleted uranium.
The wave of fission would move slowly through this depleted uranium core, splitting many more of the uranium atoms than a conventional reactor would.
John Gilleland, head of TerraPower’s Nuclear Initiative, based in Washington state, recently revealed details of the TWR concept for the first time at a seminar at the Department of Nuclear Engineering of the University of California in Berkeley.
He said advantages over a more conventional uranium-plutonium breeder reactor system would include a simplified fuel cycle, no need for highly enriched uranium except for ignition, no reprocessing, less transports, less nuclear waste, no separation of fissile material, hence a lower proliferation risk and lower overall costs.
He said TerraPower was planning to develop a 1,000-MW TWR, which could be installed in an AP1000-like containment.
Mr Gilleland also said there were technical challenges to be met before a TWR demonstration unit can be built, in particular material damage questions, design of the intermediate heat exchangers, and the realities of thorough testing and regulatory requirements.
TerraPower said Bill Gates is one of several TerraPower investors and has attended some of the TWR information gathering meetings with other TerraPower officials.
Mr Gates recently said the project was necessary because novel solutions and long-term strategies are needed to cope with global warming. For more information on the TWR |
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