What are the advantages of a breeder reactor over a conventional nuclear fission reactor?

This is why many breeder reactors are also fast reactors. Fast neutrons are ideal for plutonium production because they are easily absorbed by U238 to create Pu239, and they cause less fission than thermal neutrons. Some fast breeder reactors can generate up to 30 percent more fuel than they use.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the breeder reactor?

Fast breeder reactors can convert more fertile material to fissile material and therefore, net fuel consumption is much less. As a matter of fact more fissile material could be produced than would be consumed by it (fast breeder reactor).

What is the difference between a breeder reactor and power reactor?

Whereas a conventional nuclear reactor can use only the readily fissionable but more scarce isotope uranium-235 for fuel, a breeder reactor employs either uranium-238 or thorium, of which sizable quantities are available. In breeders, approximately 70 percent of this isotope can be utilized for power production.

Are breeder reactors safe?

But as the battle over a major fast-breeder reactor in the UK intensifies, skeptics warn that fast-breeders are neither safe nor cost-effective. Plutonium is the nuclear nightmare. A by-product of conventional power-station reactors, it is the key ingredient in nuclear weapons.

Do breeder reactors produce waste?

Breeder reactor waste is mostly fission products, while light-water reactor waste has a large quantity of transuranics. After spent nuclear fuel has been removed from a light-water reactor for longer than 100,000 years, these transuranics would be the main source of radioactivity.

What is Fast Breeder Reactor?

A Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) is a nuclear reactor that uses fast neutron to generate more nuclear fuels than they consume while generating power, dramatically enhancing the efficiency of the use of resources. Nuclear fission by fast neutron causes the increase in neutrons generated.

Where does Pu-239 come from in a fast breeder reactor?

The conventional fast reactors built so far are generally fast breeder reactors (FBRs) implying a net increase in Pu-239 from breeding, due to a conversion ratio above 1.0. These have a ‘fertile blanket’ of depleted uranium (U-238) around the core, and this is where much of the Pu-239 is produced.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of fast breeder reactor?

Fast Breeder Reactor – Advantages and Disadvantages. 1. Heat developed per unit volume of core or per unit area of fuel surface is less. 2. Ease of control. 3. Greater inherent safety. Disadvantages:

What happens to U-238 in a nuclear reactor?

In any reactor some of the U-238 component is turned into several isotopes of plutonium during its operation. Two of these, Pu-239 and Pu-241, then undergo fission in the same way as U-235 to produce heat. In an FNR this process can be optimised so that it ‘breeds’ fuel. Some U-238 is burned directly with neutron energies above 1 MeV.

Why do we need plutonium and U-233 in nuclear reactors?

The plutonium and U-233 is needed as a driver fuel in advanced heavy water reactors forming stage 3 of the concept – these get about 75\% of their power from the thorium, but need the plutonium and U-233 to do so.