Guardian UK - General Electric set out proposals on Wednesday to build a new nuclear reactor at Sellafieldthat would convert the UK's stockpile of radioactive plutonium into electricity.
S-PRISM, also called PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module), is the name of a nuclear power plant design by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) based on a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor. The design utilizes reactor modules, each having a power output of 311 MWe, to enable factory fabrication at low cost. The design is based on the Integral Fast Reactor.
The multibillion pound project would take plutonium – the residue from the UK's nuclear power plants – and use it as fuel for a 600MW reactor that could provide power for 750,000 homes, according to GE Hitachi.The UK government has still not decided which option it prefers for dealing with the UK's plutonium – others include long-term storage, converting it for use in a thorium reactor or building a new mixed oxide fuel ('mox') processing plant – and GE's proposal is likely to face competition. Ministers have been increasingly talking about the future of the stockpile, which costs about £2bn a year to maintain, and some in government want the plutonium to be classed as an asset rather than a liability.
S-PRISM, also called PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module), is the name of a nuclear power plant design by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) based on a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor. The design utilizes reactor modules, each having a power output of 311 MWe, to enable factory fabrication at low cost. The design is based on the Integral Fast Reactor.
Read on at: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/11/uk-considers-prism-and-thorium-reactors.html
