RADWASTE MANAGEMENT | ONWARDS
form that will decouple the interdependent constraints that exist between storage, transport, and disposal, the partners state. Designed to be compatible with current dry storage and transportation infrastructure, the new canister will also meet the thermal, volumetric and criticality waste acceptance constraints of Deep Isolation’s deep borehole solution. The goal is to minimise the long-term costs of used fuel and waste management by packaging waste in small canisters that can be dry stored on site or centrally, transported to a geologic repository, and disposed of without repackaging. Deep Isolation is also partnering with another group
Above: Stony Brook University is considering the use of TRISO as a low-waste and repository-ready fuel Source: US DOE
V homogeneously throughout the metal matrix. It will be consolidated to reduce porosity. The PACE-FORWARD technology will substantially minimise processing of waste streams by eliminating the need to develop multiple waste forms for separate waste streams, Rutgers says. The process will also reduce the repository footprint by around an order of magnitude compared with light water reactor technologies. It is designed to be suitable for multiple disposal environments and is also expected to reduce production and operation and maintenance costs by around 50% when compared with current incumbent technologies, they add.
Another academic project funded under the ARPA-E scheme is the US$3.4 million Matrix Engineered TRISO Compacts Enabling Advanced Reactor Fuel Cycles (MATRICY) project underway at Stony Brook University in New York. Their proposal centres on a comprehensive systems
approach to significantly reduce the waste burden by improving fuel utilization and reducing uranium loading. This approach considers the use of a TRISO-based micro- encapsulated fuel employing MgO as a low-waste and repository-ready fuel form. MATRICY will engineer the TRISO fuel to enable deconsolidation of intact particles. At the same time the project will evaluate it as a final waste form for long-term disposition. The Stony Brook team will couple reactor analysis with a
programme to fabricate and understand the performance of the new fuel and its waste forms. They aim to realise more than an order of magnitude reduction in nuclear waste compared with current state-of-the-art technologies. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley,
the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and NAC International are working in partnership with Deep Isolation on the UPWARDS programme with more than US$3.6 million of ARPA-E funding. The Universal Performance Criteria and Canister for Advanced Reactor Waste Form Acceptance in Borehole and Mined Repositories Considering Design Safety (UPWARDS) project is looking to establish a novel universal canister system for advanced reactor waste streams. This new canister will create an elemental waste
20 | July 2022 |
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receiving ARPA-E funding. In an Oklo-led project – Enabling the Near-term Commercialization of an Electrorefining Facility to Close the Metal Fuel Cycle – the partners aim to commercialise a nuclear fuel recycling facility within the next few years. This facility will produce fuel for Oklo’s metal-fuelled reactors and close the advanced reactor fuel cycle. ARPA-E funding worth US$4 million will allow the partners to focus on industrialising and automating the key processes of an electrorefining facility used for recycling nuclear fuel. That will address each key operation and demonstrate the end-to-end process with simulated fuel. The project will also prepare the facility for NRC licensing and establish a plan for the final deep borehole repository disposal of any waste resulting from the process. This technology is expected to reduce waste by more than an order of magnitude compared with a no-reprocessing baseline. In addition, ONWARDS aims to advance development of high-performance waste forms while maintaining back-end costs in the accepted range of US$1/MWh, its backers claim. “The ONWARDS project will build on our other DOE
project work to allow Oklo to build a first-of-a-kind fuel recycling facility,” said Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo. “A commercial-scale fuel recycling facility will change the economic paradigm for advanced fission,” he added. Smaller projects are also underway at Brigham Young
University - Two-Step Chloride Volatility Process for Reprocessing Used Nuclear Fuel from Advanced Reactors; Idaho National Laboratory - Traveling Molten Zone Refining Process Development for Innovative Fuel Cycle Solutions; and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Metal-Halide Perovskites as Innovative and Cost-Effective Fluoride Salt Waste Forms. These projects round out the 11 which are receiving funding under this round of ARPA-E funding. All these research projects seek to increase the deployment and use of nuclear power as a reliable source of clean energy by limiting the volume of waste produced from Advanced Reactors. By mitigating waste and storage concerns, the goal is to support clean energy infrastructure and pave the way for a new era of nuclear energy. Indeed, the DOE recently released a supply chain report noting that the development of fuel and an integrated waste disposal strategy for advanced reactor technologies are significant factors in supporting further nuclear energy deployment. As Secretary of Energy Jennifer M Granholm says: “Developing novel approaches to safely manage nuclear waste will enable us to power even more homes and businesses in America with carbon-free nuclear energy. ARPA-E is doing just that by supporting companies and universities that are working on next-generation technologies to modernise advanced reactors and strengthen the nation’s clean energy enterprise”. ■
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