PLUTONIUM DISPOSITION IN THE BN-600 FAST-NEUTRON REACTOR AT THE BELOYARSK NUCLEAR-POWER-PLANT

In 1996, the United States and the Russian Federation completed an ini tial joint study that evaluated the candidate options for the disposit ion of surplus weapons-derived plutonium in both countries. While Russ ia advocates building new reactors for converting weapons-derived plut onium to spent Fuel, the cost is high, and the continuing joint study of the Russian options is considering only the use of the existing VVE R-1000 LWRs in Russia land possibly in Ukraine) and the existing BN-60 0 fast-neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia. The BN-600 reactor, which currently uses enriched uranium fuel, is ca pable with certain design modifications of converting up to 1.3 metric tons (MT) of surplus weapons-derived plutonium to spent fuel each yea r. The steps needed to convert BN-600 to a plutonium-burner core will be discussed. The step involving the hybrid core allows an early and t imely start that takes advantage of the limited capacity for fabricati ng uranium-plutonium mixed-oxide Fuel early in the disposition program . The design lifetime of BN-600 must safely and reliably be extended b y 10 yr to at least 2020 so that a sufficient amount of plutonium (sim ilar to 20 MT) can be converted to spent fuel. Published by Elsevier S cience B.V.