2010 Views on Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status - 2010

Nuclear Power Industry

Cochran, and 7 co-authors, reported in early 2010 that the possibility of a plutonium‑fueled nuclear reactor that could produce more fuel than it consumed (a “breeder reactor”) was first raised during World War II in the United States by scientists in the atomic bomb program. It is always informative to consider past views on fast-breeder reactors and how they compare with the realities of today. In the following two decades after WW II, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and India followed the United States in establishing national plutonium breeder reactor programs, while Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands joined the French and German programs as partners. In all of these programs, the main driver was the hope of solving the long‑term energy supply problem using the large scale deployment of nuclear energy for electric power. Plutonium-fueled breeder reactors appeared to offer a way to avoid a potential shortage of the low-cost uranium required to support such an ambitious vision using other kinds of reactors.

As the past passed, geoscientists proved that uranium is much more abundant than originally imagined (here) and (here), and, after a fast start, nuclear power growth slowed dramatically in the late 1980s and global nuclear capacity is today about one-tenth the level that had been projected in the early 1970s. The urgency of deploying fast‑neutron reactors for plutonium breeding therefore abated — at least in the western Organization for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) countries (as of 2021 (more)).

In India and Russia, however, concerns about potential near‑term uranium shortages persist, and new demonstration breeder reactors are being built. China, which currently is building up its nuclear capacity at an enormous rate, is considering the possibility of building two Russian‑designed breeder reactors. Because of the high costs and reliability and safety issues that are detailed below, however, no commercial breeder reactors have been deployed.

Interest in fast‑neutron reactors persisted in the OECD countries for a new reason, political difficulties with storing or disposing of spent fuel. “Reprocessing”
spent fuel does not eliminate the problem of siting a geological repository but a reprocessing plant does provide an interim destination that has proved a path forward with regard to the spent fuel problem in a number of nations.

The authors concluded in 2010 that although there are safety issues generic to liquid metal fast reactors, it does not appear that they were the predominant reasons for the demise of the breeder program in the United States. More important were proliferation concerns and a growing conviction that breeder reactors would not be needed or economically competitive with light-water reactors for decades, if ever.

However, under GNEP, the DOE expressed renewed interest in fast reactors, initially as burner reactors to fission the actinides in the spent fuel of the light-water reactors. So far, the new designs are mostly paper studies, and the prospect of a strong effort to develop the burner reactors is at best uncertain. The Obama Administration has terminated the GNEP Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and efforts by DOE to move to near-term commercialization of fast reactors and the closed fuel cycle for transmutation of waste. As this report went to press, there was continuing debate on whether to even continue R&D on fast-neutron reactors (more). The economic and nonproliferation arguments against such reactors remain strong.

[For up-to-date views on this subject, see the International Panel on Fissile Materials: https://www.fissilematerials.org/]