Technical and Economic Assessment of the Prospects for Radiogenic Lead as a Coolant for Lead Cooled Fast Reactors

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Radiogenic lead has been proposed as a possible coolant for Lead Cooled Fast Reactors. Radiogenic lead is lead that occurs in nature as the decay product of the radioactive decay of previous actinides (such as uranium and thorium). Typically it is located away from the geological locations of regular lead. Some deposits of relatively pure radiogenic lead have been identified.Radiogenic lead has a high proportion of the PB208 isotope than normal naturally occurring lead. Pb 208 has complete nuclear shells and hence is unlikely to absorb neutrons in a nuclear reactor environment. While the potential of Pb208 as a superb LFR coolant has been known for some time it is not practicable or economic to envisage the enrichment of natural lead to enhance Pb 208 concentrations. This project is to assess whether the identification and preparation of radiogenic lead might be a better prospect. The project will examine the technical potential (in terms of reactor physics) of radiogenic lead and also assess the economics of obtaining such material at scale in contrast to nuclear physics based enrichment of natural lead.