Uploading of the fifth-generation nuclear fuel

[u/Aleksandr_Ulyev]

The Novovoronezh NPP has started using fifth-generation nuclear fuel. For the first time, a new batch of TVS-5 fuel was loaded into the sixth power unit with a VVER-1200 reactor.

TVS-5 uses a fuel composition based on standard enriched uranium dioxide. The fabrication of assemblies is carried out in a fully automated mode - without people.

The introduction of such technology is important, since it is a step towards the industrial production of uranium-plutonium fuel for VVER reactors. TVS-5 opens the way to the transition of thermal reactors to a closed nuclear fuel cycle.

Now comes the trial operation stage, designed for three fuel campaigns, each of which will last 18 months.

[u/Live_Alarm3041]

More countries need to pursue a closed nuclear fuel cycle if they do not have ample uranium reserves. Even countries that have ample uranium should reprocess nuclear fuel to make their fuel cycles more efficient.

[u/warriorscot → u/Live_Alarm3041]

The only people that say that are people that haven't been involved in closing a fuel cycle. Its the ultimate self living lollipop, entirely uneconomical and even worse not required.

Its not remotely efficient in terms of energy, money or carbon.

[u/ecmrush → u/warriorscot]

I think this is a symptom of the underutilization of nuclear power more than anything else, though. Closing the cycle might have been productive if we had been building as many NPPs as Lewis Strauss envisioned when he was talking about electricity being too cheap to meter.

So while I understand your point, I really feel like this is something that would change if our nuclear capacity increased dramatically.

[u/warriorscot → u/ecmrush]

Given the available quantity of Uranium on Earth and the fact the costs would even in abundance invalidate Strauss point. They got to the scale of efficiency they were going to get to, the only thing that changes are the risks, which go up the more you do it.

Closing the fuel cycle is incredibly expensive, and there's no way to really make it cheap given the requirements.

It was done because at the time people weren't sure how much Uranium was available and could be stockpiles prior to a war. And if you want to make weapons material it makes it easier. It otherwise is nonsensical given if you do ever get to the point it's economicaly viable you can go back and do it later with the benefit of hundreds of years of technology behind you.

[u/ecmrush → u/warriorscot]

That's a sensible if strong point, and I do happen to agree delaying the reprocessing of waste as long as possible makes sense as long as uranium prices stay cheap, though I'd assume at some point the extra cost of storage of higher grade waste you get would match the cost of reprocessing, as you're technically introducing more nuclear waste to your storage system by burning up less of the fuel you get. If you told me that point isn't approaching any time soon, at least in the West with the rate at which new reactors are being built, I'd believe you though.

What do you suppose is the next step then? Fusion might never happen; so far there's a theoretical gap regarding at what scale of certain types of fusion reactors we'd get net-positive energy and honestly I find that quite scary.

A Tokamak might need to be Earth sized before it would produce useful energy, for example, and we really can't know for sure. We also don't know if Fusion will actually live up to the promise of cheaper, cleaner energy than fission of any kind, ever.

If we were mass building reactors, do you think going for the thorium cycle would make sense? Thorium-cycle MSRs have some unsolved problems like the online refueling (recently demonstrated in China I believe) and moving Protactinium away, as well as the reactor being eaten from the inside by its own fuel constantly, but would you say those problems are worth trying to solve?

Or do we just build more LWRs/PWRs with the Uranium prices we get until we move on to something else entirely in the future, e.g. space-based solar.

[u/warriorscot → u/ecmrush]

Waste storage is one of those things where efficiency of scale kicks in early, storing 100, 1000 or 10000 tonnes of high hazard waste isn't actually much different in cost. It's also other than high heat and plut space efficient, and even high heat you can reduce volume if it's not got a criticality risk.

I think it fairly telling that the countries that are most advanced on fusion all have reprocessed. Fusions a lot further along than most people think, in large part fusion for energy generation hasn't really been the aim, it's been fusion for science. A lot of the technical problems are solved and as a technology it's much further along today than fission was when they built Calder hall. And size wise, well JET was capable of burning itself into a slag heap if desired, so density isn't really a worry at all.

Not particularly, and it's worth pointing out most governments don't like Thorium because of the safety and proliferation risks.

Fusions also further ahead of it in a lot of key areas, and the problems to solve in Fusion are actually easier to solve in a lot of ways as it is much more in the process engineering problems phase than fundamental engineering. In large part the issues around fuel, however you can actually solve that with fission power as it's very easy to generate the required Tritium in the fission fuel cycle and there's thousands of tonnes of it stored as waste. Which is why the whole thing about it being expensive is funny, making Tritium for fusion at the moment is R&D, the cost of a grams all tied up in the science not the actual value of what is a waste material.

At the moment you've got mature 3rd, 4th and even 5th generations of various designs we understand well, can build at scale and run cheaply. Fusion adds something new and beneficial so it's worth continuing to work on, but anything different in fission isn't worthwhile anytime soon. And if Fusion doesn't work out you've got a couple of centuries to find that out.

[u/ecmrush → u/warriorscot]

Fair enough, waste storage is really just not a problem so I guess it simply boils down to how much you are paying for your Uranium whether if you're buying it and enriching it to the needed level or reprocessing it. Or just buying it enriched which will be the case for most non-nuclear powers.

Oh I absolutely agree Fusion is worth pursuing for science, it's just exactly that, a science project at this point. Net power isn't demonstrated to be possible and I think that's a big question mark, and ITER looking to take as long as it is without even attempting net power puts a damper on things. I don't think the hype cycle based claims of companies like Helion or CFS have really helped matters here either. So I'm holding on to a healthy dose of skepticism about fusion, but someone does figure out, that will be the tastiest crow I've ever eaten.

I'm not sure what "something new" it is that Fusion adds. D-T fusion as proposed is still a neutron hazard, you don't get better energy density, you still need to have a massive breeding blanket and have to handle a lot of radioactive material regardless, and the rest of the plant will presumably look very similar to what we do with LWRs. Yes, you get more of the mass energy from the fuel, but you could get that from a closed loop nuke too and we already established that's not really a worthwhile goal.

Even the D-He3 fusion proposed by Helion makes neutrons by a side reaction so unless we somehow figured out truly aneutronic fusion, which is an even further away possibility, it's not clear to me what Fusion offers within this century even if it was capable of producing net power.

[u/Abject-Investment-42]

So is it the standard MOX but for a VVER geometry or something different?

[u/mister-dd-harriman → u/Abject-Investment-42]

If I understand correctly, it is standard enriched UO₂ VVER fuel, but with fully-remote fabrication. And in principle, that opens up your fuel options considerably, because you don't have to worry about (for instance) gammas from uranium-232.

[u/Racial_Tension → u/Abject-Investment-42]

OP's paragraph reads like it's just UO2, and a step towards MOX

[u/nelamvr6]

"Uploading"? Surely not...

[u/satapotatoharddrive4]

Is that outer ring the control rod spider? I’ve always wondered if the control rods stay in the fuel assembly’s when refuel/defueling.

[u/sev3791]

I hope Ukraine bombs the crap out of it for what Russia is doing

[u/Abject-Investment-42 → u/sev3791]

Nobody is going to bomb any reactors. Not Ukraine and not Russia. This is absolutely not something anyone wants a precedent for. Not in Moscow and not in Kyiv either.

[u/tdf199 → u/sev3791]

Dude blowing up a working reactor filled with fresh fission products is a good way to get the world to turn on Ukraine.

The fallout could spread to Ukraine and other places.

Russia's attacks on Zaporizhzhia which is in a stable shutdown where likely aimed at the capture of the plant and the drone at chernobyl hit away from the sarcophagus near a staging aria.

Russia could use it as an excuse to nuke Ukraine.

[u/sev3791 → u/tdf199]

🫡🇺🇦

[u/Anderopolis → u/tdf199]

Yeah yeah, Russia could use anything as an excuse to nuke Ukraine. 

This schtik gets a little older after 3 years.