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Travis Knight is studying a new type of nuclear reactor fuel for use in a futuristic nuclear reactor that likely won't see the light of day in commercial operation for 40 years or more. Call it a lesson in perseverance.
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| Travis Knight |
"This project is looking beyond the nuclear reactors that might be built in the next 20 years or so," said Knight, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering. "Technology development in nuclear power follows a long timeline. You start now to develop something that won't be perfected until years down the road."Knight has a three-year, $450,000 grant from the Department of Energy to investigate mixed carbide fuels for use in gas-cooled fast reactors. Conventional reactors use uranium dioxide to create heat and generate electricity. Future reactors might use radioactive fuels that are coated with zirconium carbide, a highly conductive material that would be more efficient than ordinary uranium dioxide.
"The mixed carbide fuel isn't compatible with water, so it would have to be used with a different reactor set up--probably a helium-cooled reactor," Knight said.
Such reactors--which have been designed but not commercially manufactured--operate at nearly three times the temperature of conventional water-cooled reactors and can generate electricity using recycled radioactive waste products from current nuclear plants.
"South Africa, Japan, and China are building high-temperature reactors, and there are plans to use gas coolant and composite fuels, but no one is yet building a gas-cooled fast reactor," Knight said.
What's the difference? Unlike conventional reactors, which slow down neutrons with water, the so-called fast reactor does not slow them down and uses fuels unacceptable to conventional reactors. Because of its unconventional fuel, high operating temperature--1,560 degrees Fahrenheit--and operating efficiency, a gas-cooled fast reactor would create smaller amounts of waste products."
The concept of nuclear power is enjoying a resurgence in the United States, sparked by high fossil fuel prices and growing concern over greenhouse gases created by coal- and gas-fired generating plants. Nuclear plants planned for construction in the next few years will use light-water reactors, the norm for the past 40 years.
Knight's research is helping to lay the groundwork for the next generation of reactors and reactor fuels. While Knight won't see the results of his work in commercial operation for years to come, the wait will be worth it, he said.
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