Innovative Nuclear Reactors: Historical Overview and Future Challenges Chirayu Batra Fast Reactor Technology Development Team Nuclear Power Technology Development Section (NPTDS) [email protected]Joint ICTP-IAEA Workshop on Physics and Technology of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems 20 – 24 August 2018, ICTP Miramare-Trieste, Italy
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Innovative Nuclear Reactors: Historical
Overview and Future Challenges
Chirayu BatraFast Reactor Technology Development Team
Nuclear Power Technology Development Section (NPTDS)
Joint ICTP-IAEA Workshop on Physics and Technology of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems
20 – 24 August 2018,
ICTP Miramare-Trieste, Italy
About Me
• Working as a nuclear engineer at the IAEA for last 3 years, and
involved in
– Advanced Technology for fast reactors (TM, CM, CRPs etc.)
– PC based basic principle nuclear power plant simulators (design specifications,
acceptance tests, lectures)
Presentation Overview
• Dive into history, and start from the beginning
• Understand the current scenario and what innovative reactors are
• Then lead to how we will become sustainable with the help of innovative nuclear
energy systems/technology
• And eventually discuss what are the future challenges that we (will) face.
LET’S START WITH THE
HISTORY
From the beginning, the very beginning…
Democritus (400 BC)
• All matter consists of invisible particles
called atoms.
• Atoms are indestructible.
• Atoms are solid but invisible.
• Atoms are homogenous.
• Atoms differ in size, shape, mass,
position, and arrangement.
• Solids are made of small, pointy atoms.
• Liquids are made of large, round atoms.
• Oils are made of very fine, small atoms
that can easily slip past each other
ATOMIC THEORY
This did not change much for many centuries
Dalton – 1803
• All matter was composed
of atoms, indivisible and
indestructible building blocks.
While all atoms of an element
were identical, different elements
had atoms of differing size and
mass.
English chemist, physicist, and meteorologist
J.J. Thomson – 1897
• Discovered electron
• Cathode ray tube experiment
Ernest Rutherford – 1920
• Proton
• Gold foil experiment
• Most of the mass concentrated
at the center.
• First artificial transmutation –
changed nitrogen to oxygen
• The word proton is Greek for
"first", and this name was given
to the hydrogen nucleus by
Ernest Rutherford in 1920
James Chadwick – 1932
• Rutherford's colleague at Cambridge, identified a third particle, the neutron
• He was the head of the British team that worked on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War
• He studied under Ernest Rutherford
• The groundwork was also done by Frederik Joliot in France and Walter Bothe in Germany
By the early 1930s the atom was
thought to consist of a positively
charged nucleus, containing both
protons and neutrons, circled by
negatively charged electrons equal in
number to the protons in the nucleus.
Scientists understood that the weight
discrepancy between atoms of the same
element resulted because they contained
different numbers of neutrons.
Cockroft & Walton – 1932
• The year 1932 produced other
notable events in atomic physics
• The Englishman J. D. Cockroft
and the Irishman E. T. S. Walton,
working jointly at the Cavendish
Laboratory
• They were the first to split the
atom when they bombarded
lithium with protons generated by
a particle accelerator and
changed the resulting lithium
nucleus into two helium nuclei
1933 – “Moonshine”
“The energy produced by breaking down the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations of these atoms is talking moonshine.”
– Ernest Rutherford, 1933.
Einstein compared particle bombardment with shooting in the dark at scarce birds.
Bohr agreed that the chances of taming atomic energy were remote.
Fermi – 1934
• Italian physicist Enrico Fermi began bombarding elements with neutrons instead of
protons
• Like other scientists at the time, Fermi paid little attention to the possibility that
matter might disappear during bombardment and result in the release of huge
amounts of energy in accordance with Einstein's formula, E= mc2, he did fission but did
not realize what it was
• It was also found that carbon and hydrogen proved useful as moderators in slowing the bombarding neutrons and that
slow neutrons produced the best results since neutrons moving more slowly remained in the vicinity of the nucleus longer
and were therefore more likely to be captured.
• Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1938 for his work on transuranic elements. He and his family went to Sweden to
receive the prize, and then to USA from there.
1939 – “Fission”
• The radiochemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann were bombarding elements with neutrons in their
Berlin laboratory when they made an unexpected discovery. They found that while the nuclei of most
elements changed somewhat during neutron bombardment, uranium nuclei changed greatly and broke
into two roughly equal pieces.
• Importantly, the products of the Hahn-Strassmann experiment weighed less than that of the original uranium
nucleus, and herein lay the primary significance of their findings.
• Calculations made by Hahn's former colleague, Lise Meitner, and Otto Frisch, led to the conclusion that so
much energy had been released that a previously undiscovered kind of process was at work.
1939 – “Fission” reaches Fermi
• Meitner and Frisch communicated their results to Niels Bohr, who was in Copenhagen preparing to depart for the United
States via Sweden and England. Bohr confirmed the validity of the findings while sailing to New York City, arriving on
January 16, 1939
• Fermi and Szilard collaborated with Walter H. Zinn and Herbert L. Anderson at Columbia University in investigating the
possibility of producing a nuclear chain reaction.
• March 1940 John R. Dunning and his colleagues at Columbia University, collaborating with Alfred Nier of the University of
Minnesota, had demonstrated conclusively that uranium-235, present in only 1 in 140 parts of natural uranium, was
the isotope that fissioned with slow neutrons, not the more abundant uranium-238 as Fermi had guessed.
Chain Reaction
• It soon became clear that the process of fission discovered by Hahn and Strassmann had another important characteristic
besides the immediate release of enormous amounts of energy. This was the emission of neutrons. Given the right set
of circumstances, perhaps these secondary neutrons might collide with other atoms and release more neutrons, in turn
smashing into other atoms and, at the same time, continuously emitting energy.
• A controlled self-sustaining reaction could make it possible to generate a large amount of energy for heat and
power, while an unchecked reaction could create an explosion of huge force.
2 December 1942 – Chicago Pile 1
• Precisely at 3:36 p.m., Chicago time
• First controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction
• 1942 – 1943
1932 (discovery of Neutron
to
1942 (Chain reaction)
A particle unknown to humankind became the most powerful source of energy within 10 Years!
20 December 1951 – EBR I
• Electricity first generated from nuclear power
The very first reactor, as per today’s definition was innovative
Clementine (25kWt), was
the first fast neutron
reactor which achieved
criticality in 1946. Mercury
cooled and plutonium
fueled.
LAMPRE-I, achieved
criticality in 1961. Sodium
cooled and plutonium
fueled.
1954 – Obninsk
• In May, 5 MW(e) graphite moderated, light water cooled,
enriched uranium reactor at Obninsk, USSR reached
criticality,
• 26 June 1954 it was connected to the Mosenergo grid
Marked the beginning of civilian nuclear
power plant programmes
1954 – Nautilus “sailor”
• SSN-571, December, the first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus in the USA, began
operation under nuclear power
• PWR produced by Westinghouse
• 1954 – 1980
Two parallel programmes
were happening, the
other was to develop
Submarines
Other milestones
• 1956 – Calder Hall-1, a 50 MW(e) GCR, came on line in the UK (and operated
until March 2003).
• 1957 - ShippingPort in the USA was next, a 60 MW(e) PWR connected to the grid
• 1959 – G-2 (Marcoule) a 38 MW(e) GCR in France.
• 1959 – the world’s first nonmilitary nuclear powered ship, the icebreaker Lenin,
was launched in the USSR, also first nuclear powered surface ship, PWR