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Reduction of long-lived actinide waste generated by nuclear fission reactors has become a major topic of study. The use of thorium as fertile material might offer an easy solution because the production of plutonium and higher actinides is low when U-238 is absent. This paper presents the waste production of once-through thorium fueled Heavy Water Reactors (THWRs) related to the waste production of a natural uranium fueled Heavy Water Reactor. The studied reactor systems are introduced in table 1.
All once-through THWRs require externally supplied fissile fuel since natural thorium does not contain fissile isotopes. The possible choices are U-233, U-235, or plutonium from LWR discharges. U-233 is not considered because it is not commercially available. Two enrichments of uranium topping were considered: HEU-235 (enrichment 93 wt%) and MEU-235 (enrichment 20 wt%). The plutonium topping is from PWR fuel with a discharge burnup of 45 MWd/kg (fissile fraction 66 wt%).
Last reviewed: 3 February 2012
