Breeder reactors create more nuclear fuel than they consume, with a breeding ratio representing the number of new fissile atoms created for each fission event. They can use unenriched uranium or thorium, which is more abundant and produces less nuclear waste. However, they also create a nuclear weapons risk, which can be addressed by pretreatment. Two types of breeder reactors have been proposed: the breeder reactor and the thermal breeder reactor. Several countries are committing funds to continued development.
A breeder reactor is a type of nuclear power plant specifically designed to create more fissile material (nuclear fuel) than it consumes. Depending on a reactor’s raise ratio, it can produce new fuel at a faster or slower rate. The breeding ratio represents the number of new fissile atoms created for each fission event. The theoretical upper limit for the reproduction ratio is 1.8, while most breeder reactors are designed to produce as much fissile material as they consume. It is hoped that breeder reactors will replace the current generation of conventional reactors as advances in nuclear power continue.
Most traditional nuclear reactors create additional fuel during operation, increasing fuel efficiency. As the nuclear industry developed, these ratios were pushed higher and higher, leading to better fuel economies. There are still technical hurdles to developing cost-effective breeder reactors, but breeder reactors can boast a number of advantages that traditional reactors cannot. The biggest one is that, after an initial load of enriched uranium or enriched plutonium, a breeder reactor can only be subsequently fed by periodic loads of unenriched (natural) uranium or (in another type of breeder reactor) thorium. Thorium is about four times more abundant in the Earth’s crust than uranium, has minimal weaponization risk, and produces nuclear waste that degrades to background levels much more rapidly than the waste from a conventional plant.
One concern with breeder reactors is that by producing bomb-ready nuclear fuel, such as plutonium, they create a nuclear weapons risk. This problem is addressed by a phase of nuclear pretreatment in which other elements such as curium and neptunium are added in small quantities to the plutonium. This form of processing has no effect on the use of plutonium as a reactor fuel, but makes it extremely difficult to use the material to create an atomic bomb, even using a very sophisticated design.
Two types of breeder reactors have been proposed. The first, the breeder reactor, uses an initial fuel charge of plutonium, after which it requires only natural uranium for energy. A few prototype fast breeders have been built, and Japan, China, Korea and Russia are all committing funds to continued development. The second type of breeder reactor is a thermal breeder reactor, which uses an initial charge of enriched uranium fuel, subsequently using only thorium. Fertilizer reactors have so far only been built on a small scale, with India taking the first steps towards industrial-scale development, which began in 2006.
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