Advanced Heavy Water Reactor: A New Step Toward Sustainability

Abstract

One of the great advances in the current evolution of nuclear power reactors is occurring in India, with the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). It is a reactor that uses thorium as part of its fuel, which in its two fueling cycle options, in conjunction with plutonium or low enriched uranium, produces energy at the commercial level, generating less actinides of long half-life and inert thorium oxide, which leads to an optimization in the proportion of energy produced versus the production of burnt fuels of the order of up to 50%. The objective of this work is to present the most recent research and projects in progress in India, and how the expected results should be in compliance with the current sustainability models and programs, especially the "Green Chemistry", a program developed since the 1990s in the United States and England, which defines sustainable choices in its twelve principles and that can also be mostly related to the nuclear field. Nevertheless, in Brazil, for more than 40 years there has been the discontinuation of research for a thorium-fueled reactor, and so far there has been no prospect of future projects. The AHWR is an important example as an alternative way of producing energy in Brazil, as the country has the second largest reserve of thorium on the planet.