Some experts say that it is safe, efficient, and a major step toward U.S. energy independence.

Others maintain that it is too dangerous and costly. In any event, fierce controversy swirls around

The breeder reactor project

Breeder reaclor. Arli.w’.y rendering shows rhe 375-MW Clinch Ricer planr in Oak Ridge. Tenn.

On the evening of Sept. 21, 1982, Percy Brewington, Jr., acting director of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project (CRBRP, Oak Ridge, Tenn.) for the U S . Department of Energy, picked up a chain saw and brought down the first tree for harvest at the project’s 1364-acre site. That same day, the U S . Court of Appeals for the I I t h Circuit had dissolved an injunc- tion prohibiting thecommencement of site preparation work.

The court order was one of a series of ups and downs that have charac- terized the project ever since the fed- eral government’s 1972 decision to construct a liquid metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) demonstration plant at Oak Ridge-a reactor that would produce 1.4 times more fission- able plutonium fuel than it consumes (ES&T, October 1981, p. 1132). Other events include votes in Congress

to stop all breeder funding, only to have thesevotes reversed subsequently. President Jimmy Carter made it a matter of first priority to ‘‘kill’’ the project, but was unable to do so, de- spite the power of his office.

As things stand now, the breeder project could lose its funding after the end of this month, unless the private sector comes up with more than $1 billion. Unlikely though it may seem, electric utilities may yet commit themselves to providing these funds. In fact, in late June, a IO-utility task force devised a plan to raise $1 billion through a 30-year bond issue and cer- tain other investment “vehicles” to be paid off through sales of the breeder’s electricity. I f sales fall short, the fed- eral government would guarantee the difference. At the time, the plan was considered a long shot for congres- sional approval.

Some experts familiar with the project have likened it to “The Perils of Pauline” of early moving picture days. In that series, the heroine ap- pears ready to meet her doom, only to be dramatically rescued by the hero at the I Ith hour and 59th minute. The breeder reactor project so far seems to have led a similarly charmed life.

But recently one of the breeder project’s principal rescuers, Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), announced that he will not stand up for reelection to the U S . Senate. What effect his departure may have on the project’s future remains to be seen. However, conventional wisdom has it that the effort would most likely be set back.

A picture of uncertainty The history and future of the

breeder reactor present a picture of uncertainty; the project has been a

406A Environ. Sci. Technol.. VOI. 17. NO. 9. 1983 0013-936X/83/0916-0406A$01.50/0 0 1983 American Chemical Society

subject of intense controversy from the beginning. Proponents see it as a major step toward energy independence. They maintain that the cast, which they acknowledge has risen consider- ably faster than the inflation rate, will eventually be paid back not only in domestic energy independence but in technical know-how. They even foresee eventual profitability of this electric power source on a commercial scale and add that it can be safer than to- day’s nuclear light water reactors (LWRs), for example.

On the other hand, critics of the project point out that the breeder would produce plutonium and be cooled by liquid sodium. Possibilities for accidental or deliberate harm to the en3ironment. or conversion of pluto- nium-239 (2@u) for use in weapons, rather than as fuel, are greatly en- hanced. Critics also argue that if and when the breeder is completed, it would constitute an outmoded tech- nology and add that several foreign countries are ahead of the U.S. in

breeder technology (Table 1). CRBRP detractors decry the costs involved, which they maintain will never be re- covered no matter how efficiently the breeder operates.

Capital costs were estimated at $700 million in 1972. They are now put at $3.6 billion, upwards of five times the original forecast. Indeed, a recent US . General Accounting Of- fice (GAO) report suggests that the 1972 number could be increased by a factor of more than 12, to $8.8 bil- lion.

Alvin Weinberg, director of the In- stitute for Energy Analysis of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, vehe- mently disagrees with GAOs $8.8 billion projection. “Serious errors were made in GAOs estimate,” he told ES&T. Spokesmen for the breeder project say that GAO made assump- tions about inflation, operation and maintenance costs, and electricity de- mand and prices projected far into the future-as much as 37 years-and in- cluded $3.9 billion of imputed interest

costs associated with the federal debt.

Sodium loops The phrase “liquid metal” in the

375-MW LMFBR refers to the liquid sodium used to cool the reactor and to transfer heat to water, which will produce steam to run the electric generators (Figure 1). Project critics express fears of intense fires that would result if the sodium ever came into contact with air or water.

Breeder engineers counter that “sodium oxidizes slowly; there are no intense fires. Experience with the BN-350 [a 350-MW breeder at Fort Shevchenko on the Caspian Sea, U.S.S.R.] showed that the sodium- water interactions could be ‘lived with.’ ’’

The word “fast” means that neu- trons in the reactor core move rap- idly-about 7600 km/s, as opposed to 2.24 km/s in a slow breeder, or light water reactor. Finally, the term “breeder” represents the “breeding” capability of the reactor to produce

U.S.S.R. BOR-60. Ulymovskaya, Dimitrwgrad BU350,” Shevchenkovskaya, Shevchenko. on Casplsn SBa BWOO, Ewloyarskaya. neat Sverdlovsk EN-1600 (planned)

Scotland 1959 Douneay, Caiiness, Scotland 250 1965 CDFR (planned) 1300

e: I” 40 ~ ~ n b l e s outside me us.. fa nuclear r e a c t ~ s of all sats. 207. representmg 105 823 commercial weration. 163 (1 MW) are undw consbucnon; 13 (12 574 k$Wl are on order: a M 172 (159 963 MW) are in some firm s tap of pianning This represents a total of 555 unifa(414 062MW). of Which 15 are breeders. e S t a b as 01 Dec 31, 1982. all liqulf mtal type

dUses a pmldssi[yl tar me sodium wiant e In WllabwaUan urith Beteium. Italy, West Germany. Luxembourg, and The Netherlands ’In cotiarmratian wlth aelg~wn. The Nemeriands. United Kingdom 9 In &labaation wlth Fmce and Italy

Sovse: Almic Industrial Faum (tor statistics)

Uses d u m m1art1 loaps as wkl LMBR at Clinch River Wm SCtuaHy wmmled eiacaicW

was p w also as a water dBsaWnatitlOn plant an me Caspian sea. reponedly suffered sodium Ires and explosi

-̂̂I.._ _ p I Enviran. Sci. Techml.. Vol. 17, ,W. 9, 1983 407A

more fissionable plutonium (z@u) fuel than it uses, through the fast neutron bombardment of and absorp- tion by uranium-238 (’,’,”U) the most abundant uranium isotope. *;a is not usable in LWRs because it is not fissionable. ’@u, derived from light water reactors, is the “match” neces- sary to start the breeder’s chain reac- tion (Figure 2 and Table 2).

As operations continue, other iso- topes of Pu (240-242) can be used in the breeder. The 241 isotope is fission- able. The neutron-absorbing 240 and 242 isotopes are not; nevertheless, they increase the reactor’s plutonium breeding ratio. Breeder experts point out that the presence of the nonfmion- able isotopes renders the plutonium less desirable for weapons manufac- ture than Dlutonium from a low-fuel burnup reactor.

The liquid sodium (Na) coolant, with a melting point of -207 OF, en- ters the reactor at 730 “F and leaves at 995 O F . Only a minuscule portion of the sodium is converted to the radio- active isotope ::Na-but that is an- other reason critics dislike the breeder. Weinberg reminded ES&T that the isotope’s half-life is 14.8 h.

The sodium is pumped through the primary loop, through the reactor it- self, and then through the intermediate heat exchanger. Its heat is transferred to the sodium in a second, or interme- diate loop, and that sodium is pumped

through the intermediate sodium pump. The sodium in the secondary loop, in turn, transfers its heat to the water-steam component, and the steam drives the electric generator . (Figure 3).

Other advantages of liauid sodium are its high boiling point, dbviating the need for pressurization of the breeder reactor’s coolant, and the fact that its heat brings the steam that drives the generator to 900 OF. This makes the breeder more thermally efficient than a reactor where the steam is at 500 O F , such as in an LWR. [In a coal-fired power plant, the steam driving the generators is normally at 925-1000 OF, engineers of Potomac Electric Power Company (Washington, D.C.) told ES& TI.

The relatively short half-life of

whatever amount of ::Na that there may be makes it possible to remove, repair, and reinstall the primary pump after as short a time as 12 days. Ex- perience with such repairs was ob- tained at the Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-11, near Idaho Falls, Idaho. In operation since 1963, EBR-I1 is a follow-up to EBR-I (Arm, Idaho), operated by Argonne National Laboratory from 1951 to 1963 toprove breeder feasibility and test liquid so- dium coolant technology. A third breeder was the Fermi reactor, oper- ated in Michigan starting in 1963. Fermi suffered a partial core meltdown in 1968, resumed operations in 1971, and was subsequently taken out of service, principally for economic rea- sons.

William Rolf, general manager of Project Management Corporation, a nonprofit organization responsible for the interests of utilities with respect to the CRBRP, addressed the possibility of liquid sodium coming into contact with air or water: “First of all, the so- dium coolant systems are equipped with the most up-t+date leak detectors and guard vessels. Any sodium leak would trigger a shutdown of that sys- tem while the sodium level is main- tained high enough to ensure core cooling. Sodium overflow vessels also help to maintain proper levels.

“The cooling system has ‘cold traps’ designed to make certain that oxygen

FIGURE 1 Liquid metal fast breeder reactor

408A Envlron. Sci. Technol.. VoI. 17, No. 9. 1983

levels in the sodium never exceed 10 ppm,” Rolf pointed out. An advantage of oxygen-free liquid sodium is that given the noncorrosive “atmosphere” it creates, as compared with conditions created by a water coolant, it cannot corrode (oxidize) metals such as iron. He said that sodium’s noncorrosivity was proven during 20 years of operat- ing the EBR-I1 plant. This absence of corrosion offers a side benefit of re- ducing the radiation exposure of op- eration and maintenance personnel to about 1% of that experienced at an LWR. Rolf said that these data were obtained from French nuclear scien- tists based on 10 years of experience with the 250-MW Phenix breeder as well as on their data from LWRs.

The project’s present status As of June, project research and

development was said to be 98% com- plete and plant design 90% finished. Expenditures on the CRBRP totaled $1.469 billion. The value of major components completed and in storage or undergoing tests was almost $360 million, according to Breeder Reactor Corporation (BRC, Oak Ridge, Tenn.), the 753-utility consortium helping to finance the project. The plan is to complete and start operating the reactor beginning in 1989. This will be subject to congressional funding, the outcome of further Nuclear Regula- tory Commission (NRC) licensing actions, and any present or future liti- gation.

Why did costs escalate at a rate in excess of that of inflation? NRC Commissioner Victor Gilinsky offered ES& T several explanations. First of all, increasing interest rates may have played an important role, just as they

Rolf: explained safety fealures of rhe sodium cooling system

did in other portions of the economy. Second, costs for certain materials, construction, and labor moved upward. Gilinsky, who acknowledges his lack of enthusiasm for the CRBRP, also sug- gested that original cost estimates may have been made low “in order to avoid ‘spooking’ members of Congress who must appropriate funds for such projects.” Moreover, when the original cost estimates were made, those who made them “hadn’t anticipated a lot of thines. and oromised too much.” Gil- insky said.

Taking issue with Gilinsky, Rolf cited cost increases. now Dut at $936 million, which he chargesire “the di- rect result of delays caused by the na- tional policy debate initiated in 1977 by President Carter. In April 1977, the Carter administration requested that the environmental hearings [on the CRBRP] be ‘indefinitely postponed.’ Hearings were restarted in August 1982, and successfully completed in January 1983. The net result was a five-year delay and corresponding cost increases.” Circumstances “external to the project,” which “could not be

controlled by project participants,” also received blame. In discussing these cost overruns, Rolf was referring to a report by DOE‘S inspector general (“Audit of the Clinch River Breeder Plant Project,” U S . Department of Energy, Office of the Inspector Gen- eral, DOE/lG-O185,July 21, 1982).

Arguments pro The present cost estimate for the

CRBRP “breaks my heart,” said Alvin Weinberg, a veteran of the World War I1 Manhattan Project. “But since we’ve gone this far, we should finish the reactor and learn from it. If solar and fusion energy make sense, so does the breeder, because of its potential for ‘inexhaustible’ energy.

“The US. erred not to go ahead with Clinch River 12 years ago, and by interposing the FFTF [Fast-Flux Test Facility, a reactor at Hanford, Wash., which tests breeder fuel but does not itself breed] instead.” Weinberg continued, “Let’s finish the reactor. Yes, it’s grievously expensive, but it may still pay off if it is followed by commercial breeders.” On the other hand, Gilinsky argued that the FFTF “did make sense, because one can test different fuel designs, and not choose one too early, especially when there is no urgency to do so.”

Looking to the future, Weinberg observed, “We may not need inex- haustible energy for another 75 years. But 75 years is not all that long a time for developing prime energy. And if we will be deploying commercial breeders 75 years from now, and plan them to last 30 years, we must run our dem- onstration reactor now, so we will learn over the next 30 years. That’s why it’s a disgrace that the Clinch River

_. ~~

Uranium-to-plutonium reaction

Environ. Sci. Technol.. Vol. 17, No. 9. 1983 409A

FIGURE 3 Breeder reactor heat transport and power generation

%W, megawatts thermal power Source: U.S Depanment 01 Energy I

breeder has been delayed for so long.”

Another argument advanced in support of the CRBRP has been that supplies of low-cost natural uranium, such as that used in the LWR and other once-through ‘‘burner’’ reactors, are limited and would be enormously extended with the LMFBR. Moreover, as Rolf explained, there is a stockpile of ’;@ (up to 3 x 105 metric tons) ready to use in the breeder immedi- ately. It is made as a by-product of z22v separation for ‘‘burner’’ reactors, submarines, and weapons. Rolf esti- mates the total current value of the stockpiled yz$J at a mind-boggling $60 trillion. All of that uranium could yield u wards of 2 X lo5 metric tons of

burner reactors, he points out. Still other arguments for the project include the nearly $1.5 billion already spent, equipment procured, and the more than 2000 technical, scientific, and administrative people trained for the CRBRP, all of which would be lost if the project does not go forward. In addition, in the late 197Os, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and British nuclear power authorities jointly announced a technology called

’94 hl for use in both breeder and

CIVEX, which they said would pro- duce plutonium of sufficient quality to fuel burner and breeder reactors, but not pure enough to be convertible to weapons grade except with almost in- surmountable technical difficulty.

Arguments con One major argument against the

breeder reactor is its accelerating capital cost. Indeed, if the cost esca- lates much further, one might expect that the present strong pressures to discontinue the project will become even greater, regardless of what may theoretically be learned if the LMFBR

plenfy of uranium“

were to be completed and operated. In June, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee balked at providing $270 million to continue construction of the project during fiscal year 1984 unless the private sector would furnish at least $800 million.

Opponents also are very unhappy at the prospects of increasing amounts of ’;4% that a breeder would produce. First of all, plutonium is toxic. Some experts believe, for example, that an extremely small amount of plutonium inhaled or entering the body through breaks in the skin could readily cause lung cancer, tumors a t other sites, or other toxic symptoms.

The toxicity of plutonium serves as a basis for critics’ fears that terrorists may try to obtain it and threaten to contaminate, say, a given city’s air with plutonium aerosols, or actually do so (Weinberg’s comment to ES&T is that this is “pretty remote; botulism would be a much easier weapon”). Another fear is that terrorists may steal or divert ’2211 for weapons manufacture. Some opponents also suggest that if such happenings are to be prevented, security precautions might have to be taken at the expense of certain civil liberties. They add that

410A Environ. Sci. Technol.. Vol. 17, NO. 9. I983

FIGURE 4 Breeder fuel cycle

I

Source: U.S. Department 01 Energy

diversion of fuel could occur during its transport to and from reactors, at re- actors, or at reprocessing plants. And with an LMFBR, there must be re- processing in order to recover or recy- cle plutonium (Figure 4). Kerry OBanion, formerly of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Calif.) and now with the U.S. General Services Administration, has pointed out that the whole justification for the breeder’s existence is that it duces-theoretically-more thanituses(ES&T,October 1981 ,~ . 11 32).

But could the EPRI/British CIVEX system prevent breeder plutonium use in bombs? “Yes,”said Gilinsky, “ifthe plutonium is recycled in less than one year. And no one will recycle this fuel that quickly. The special radioactive isotope that is left in to make it so dif- ficult to fabricate the plutonium into weapons decays with a half-life of about one year.”

Quoting a 1980 report by the In- ternational Nuclear Fuel Cycle Eval- uation Working Group that addressed the issue of proliferation, Rolf said that “the diversion risks encountered in the ,various steps of the breeder cycle present no greater difficulty than those

*,Yo-

of the LWR with a uranium-plutoni- um recycle, or even with a once- through cycle, in the longer term. Thus,” Rolf continued, “we are left with the choice of having other countries that are developing breeder plants set the rules for world use of plutonium, if we drop out of breeder development.”

Fast breeder critics also are uneasy about the use of liquid sodium as a coolant. Sodium is extremely reactive chemically with air and water. If for some reason one or more of the liquid sodium loops failed and the sodium escaped into air or water, the resultant reactions could under the right condi- tions have flame temperatures hot enough to melt stainless steel and re- actor materials. Rolf says that these “right” conditions cannot occur in a breeder reactor.

OBanion says that a sodium coolant failure could lead to a breach in con- tainment and to a mobilization of ac- tivation products through the oxidation of structural materials. Also, in the absence of cooling by sodium, and given the increased reactivity and higher heat in a breeder than in a burner (because of “fast” neutrons), a serious mishap in the core itself could

occur (ES&T, October 1981, p. 1134).

Gilinsky suggested to ES&T that the argument that breeders are needed to enhance a dwindling supply of scarce uranium is no longer valid. The original contention, he said, was that by the year 2000, there would be 1200 gigawatts of total power generated by nuclear reactors in the US., which would rapidly consume the available *;a. “As things turned out, only 10% or so of that gigawattage of nuclear plants will be built, and then we will be on a plateau,” Gilinsky predicted. He added, “There is much more uranium than we first thought-enough for many decades-so incentives for the CRBRP are reduced. We also thought that the price of uranium would go so high that plutonium would compete, but just the opposite happened. And reprocessing costs are about IO times more than we estimated they would he.”

Waste products A burner reactor, such as an LWR,

produces irradiation and waste prod- ucts that must eventually be handled and disposed of somewhere. So does the breeder. To be sure, plutonium

Environ. Sci. Technol., VOI. 17, No. 9, 1983 4 l l A

(2:4%) would not be a component, since it would be recovered and reused in burners and breeders. But there are other elements- transuranium “actinides” such as

(americium and curium, res ectivel ),

and ‘24%e. OBanion has described waste from the reprocessing plant as an acidic liquid that must decay ra- dioactively in tanks for several years before it can be vitrified and placed in long-term repositories (ES& T , Octo- ber 1 9 8 1 , ~ . 1133).

On the other hand, breeder propo- nents point out that all of the actinides, of which plutonium is but one, can be consumed in a breeder. This would reduce the half-life of the waste iso- topes from lo5 y to less than a century, Rolf said. He added that a test capsule was sent from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the British Prototype Fast Reactor in 1979. It contained americium and curium to test the nu- clear cross-section for use as fuel in breeder reactors. As for other prod- ucts, such as SgSr and ::’Cs, “you get about the same types after reprocess- ing as you do from the LWR,” Gilin- sky said. “You don’t get as much in the

21% 238-24p 24’.a!lAm, and242,2#Cm 91 P. 94 u, as well as nonactinide ‘g, P Y ];Kr, ‘&I,

way of uranium mine tailings, because you don’t need to mine as much ura- nium for breeders.” But Rolf reminded ES& T that the amount of waste gen- erated, and repository space therefore needed, is proportional to the energy generated by a reactor. He maintains that breeders are 15% more thermally efficient than LWRs, so there would be 15% less waste per unit of energy produced by a breeder than by an LWR.

Will there be a US. breeder? When the question, “will the

breeder be built in the US.?” is asked, the answer is that three have already been built in Idahoand Michigan. “It’s funny, you know-civilian nuclear energy started with breeders,” Gilin- sky observed. “Remember that at the time of Enrico Fermi and the Man- hattan Project and immediately there after, uranium was thought to be scarce. So the scientists of that era counseled, ‘use all isotopes,’ which meant that breeders would be neces- sary. Who could tell at the time that this conventional wisdom concerning uranium would turn out not to be fact?”

So perhaps the question should be rephrased: “will the CIinch Riuer

breeder reactor be built?” I t has its vigorous champions and vociferous opponents. It is vigorously supported by the present administration. And while its congressional support may appear to be weakening, a private- sector funding plan seemed to be de- veloping as this went to press.

Much money, time, and effort have gone into the LMFBR since 1972; a great deal of “hardware” has been procured, and several thousand jobs have been created. Moreover, if the project is abandoned, shutdown costs could be high. Government estimates range between $44.5 million and $1 billion. However, nuclear power in- dustry experts speak about higher figures that could represent lawsuits by money-contributing utilities, site landscaping expenses, and firm con- tracts for equipment that would be rendered useless. Balancing these and related factors against the powerful economic and political opposition pressures the CRBRP is facing, ES& T will make the “unabashed assessment” that, as seen from the vantage point of July 1983, the chances of the project going forward to successful completion stand at slightly higher than 50-50.

-Julian Josephson

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412A Envimn. Sci. Technol.. VoI. 17, NO. 9, 1983