Nuclear Energy Systems with Zero Release of Radioactive Materials

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An ultimate goal of the nuclear energy research and development is to establish the way to harmonize the nuclear energy with global environment and human society in future. The comprehensive study has been performed based on the fusion and accelerator technologies in addition to the fission technology for the feasibility of the nuclear energy system that satisfies simultaneously at least the following four objectives ; (1) energy production, (2) fuel breeding, (3) Transmutation of radioactive materials, (4) system safety.Neutron abundance of the system is the key element to achieve these objectives. The potential of fission reaction in excess neutron generation is rather poor to transmute nuclear waste with high efficiency. To overcome these difficulties, non-fission neutron producing reactions such as spallation and fusion reactions are introduced to improve neutron balance. The general methodology was developed to evaluate the excess neutron generation and energy balance in the various external neutron sources.Comparative analyses on the excess neutron, energy balance and transmutation of the wastes in various nuclear energy system have been performed based on the proposed methodology. Nuclear database were prepared for the evaluating the transmutation of fission productions. Chemical/isotope separation methods and the safety characteristics of the system were also studied.Finally, it is concluded that multi-component system with Accelerator-driven reactor and Fission-fusion hybrid reactor demonstrates clear advantage in approaching Zero-Release of Radioactive Materials from the nuclear energy system.