A Summary of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Demonstration and Test Reactor Options Study

Abstract

An assessment of advanced reactor technology options was conducted to provide a sound comparative technical context for future decisions by the Department of Energy (DOE) concerning these technologies. Strategic objectives were established that span a wide variety of important missions and advanced reactor technology needs were identified based on recent Department of Energy and international studies. A broad team of stakeholders from industry, academia and government was assembled to develop a comprehensive set of goals, criteria and metrics to evaluate advanced irradiation test and demonstration reactor concepts. Point designs of a select number of concepts were commissioned to provide a deeper technical basis for evaluation. The technology options were compared on the bases of technical readiness and the ability to meet the different strategic objectives. Using the study's evaluation criteria and metrics, an independent group of exerts from industry, universities and national labs scored each of the point designs. Pathways to deployment for concepts of varying technical maturity were estimated for the different demonstration systems with regard to cost, schedule and possible licensing approaches. This study also presents the tradeoffs that exist among the different irradiation test reactor options in terms of the ability to conduct irradiations in support of advanced reactor research and development (R&D) and to serve potential secondary missions.

High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor Research Survey and Overview: Preliminary Data Platform Construction for the Nuclear Energy University Program

“…The concept of HTGRs, or known as Very-High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (VHTR), was promulgated in the Generation IV technology roadmap in 2001 as one of the Next Generation Nuclear Power Plant (NGNP) designs [3]. Researchers have concluded that HTGRs have a high technology-readiness-level, which will enable near-term deployment in flexible energy missions [4,5]. Beyond electricity, HTGRs provide another impactful way to increase the application of nuclear energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by substituting high-quality nuclear-generated steam for fossil fuels in energy-intensive industrial applications given their high operating temperatures.…”