Role of thorium to supplement fuel cycles of future nuclear energy systems

IAEA Nuclear Energy Series, No. NF-T-
2.4. — Vienna : International Atomic Energy Agency, 2012. 171 p. ISBN 978–92–0–125910–3 Includes bibliographical references.
INPRO established a series of collaborative projects that cover issues related to innovations in technology and institutional arrangements. One of these projects is ‘Further Investigation of the Thorium Fuel Cycles’, in which Canada, China, India, France, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, Ukraine and the European Commission participated. In addition, institutions such as Thorium Power (USA), Thor Energy (Norway) and the Institute of Energy Research at Jülich (Germany) were involved as observers. The overall objective adopted by the participants was to examine the potential of thorium based fuel cycles (ThFC) to improve the sustainability of nuclear power. Fuel cycles based on thorium (232Th) are the options that may provide an opportunity to use vast deposits of this nuclear material to supply future large scale deployment of nuclear energy systems and enhance the sustainability of nuclear power. 232Th is a fertile material that can be converted in nuclear reactors into fissile material (mainly 233U), which can be used for the energy generation in a similar way to naturally occurring 235U. Different from studies of thorium conducted by the IAEA in the past, this ThFC study considers the potential role of thorium in supplementing the uranium–plutonium fuel cycle in scenarios with a significant increase in the use of nuclear energy in the world. Special attention is paid to consideration of the ThFC from the point of view of economics and proliferation resistance. The INPRO methodology is applied to assess general aspects mainly related to material flows in various ThFC options. This is the final report of the INPRO ThFC collaborative project. The IAEA officer responsible for this publication was A. Korinny of the Division of Nuclear Power.
Contents:
International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles.
Nuclear energy.
Thorium.