GEM*STAR Accelerator-Driven Subcritical-System for Improved Safety, Waste Management, and Plutonium Disposition

The successful operation of high-power superconducting radio-frequency particle accelerators at two US national laboratories allows us to consider a new kind of nuclear reactor that operates without the need for a critical core, fuel enrichment, or reprocessing. We consider a multipurpose reactor design that takes advantage of this new accelerator capability that includes an internal spallation neutron target and high-temperature molten-salt fuel with continuous purging of volatile radioactive fission products. The reactor contains less than a critical mass and a million times fewer volatile radioactive fission products than conventional reactors like those at Fukushima. These and other safety features will help to generate public enthusiasm for this new CO2-free and weapons proliferation-resistant technology. We describe GEM*STAR [1], a reactor that without redesign will burn spent nuclear fuel, natural uranium, thorium, or surplus weapons material. A first application is to burn 34 tonnes of excess weapons grade plutonium as an important step in nuclear disarmament under the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement [2]. The process heat generated by this W-Pu can be used for the Fischer-Tropsch conversion of natural gas and renewable carbon into 42 billion gallons of low-CO2-footprint, drop-in, synthetic diesel fuel for the DOD at less than $2/g, to turn a $30B US government liability into a $40B profit. The Savannah River MOX plant could supply PuF3 salt for a GEM*STAR demonstration plant to be built at that site.

[1] Charles D. Bowman, R. Bruce Vogelaar, Edward G. Bilpuch, Calvin R. Howell, Anton P. Tonchev, Werner Tornow, R.L. Walter, “GEM*STAR: The Alternative Reactor Technology Comprising Graphite, Molten Salt, and Accelerators,” Handbook of Nuclear Engineering, Springer Science+Business Media LLC (2010).

[2] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/04/140097.htm