PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module, sometimes S-PRISM from SuperPRISM) is a nuclear power plant design by

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is a provider of advanced reactors and nuclear services. It is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States. Established in June 2007, GEH is a nuclear alliance created by General Electric and Hitach ...

(GEH).

Design

The S-PRISM represents GEH's

Generation IV reactor Generation IV reactors (Gen IV) are six nuclear reactor designs recognized by the Generation IV International Forum. The designs target improved safety, sustainability, efficiency, and cost. The most developed Gen IV reactor design is the sodium ...

solution to closing the

nuclear fuel cycle The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the ''front end'', which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the ''service period'' in w ...

and is also part of its Advanced Recycling Center (ARC) proposition to U.S. Congress to deal with

nuclear waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons ...

. S-PRISM is a commercial implementation of the

Integral Fast Reactor The integral fast reactor (IFR, originally advanced liquid-metal reactor) is a design for a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons and no neutron moderator (a "fast" reactor). IFR would breed more fuel and is distinguished by a nuclear fuel cycle ...

developed by

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the l ...

between 1984 and 1994. It is a sodium-cooled

fast breeder reactor A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. Breeder reactors achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to create more fissile fuel than they use, by irradiation of a fertile mater ...

, based on the

Experimental Breeder Reactor II Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) is a sodium-cooled fast reactor designed, built and operated by Argonne National Laboratory at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

(EBR-II) design, scaled up by a factor of ten. The design utilizes reactor modules, each having a power output of 311 MWe, to enable factory fabrication at low cost. In an identical fashion to the EBR-II that it is based on, the reactor would transition to a much lower power level whenever temperatures rise significantly, moreover the reactor vessel modules are pool type, as opposed to loop type, with the pool conferring substantial

thermal inertia In thermodynamics, a material's thermal effusivity, thermal inertia or thermal responsivity is a measure of its ability to exchange thermal energy with its surroundings. It is defined as the square root of the product of the material's thermal ...

and the final key safety feature includes a "RVACS", which is a passive reactor vessel air cooling system to remove decay heat. These safety systems are passive and therefore always operate and are to prevent core damage when no other means of heat removal are available. As of 2022, the PRISM design is not under active consideration.

History

Integral fast reactor

The integral fast reactor was developed at the West Campus of the

Idaho Falls, Idaho Idaho Falls (Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: Dembimbosaage) is a city in and the county seat of Bonneville County, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho, United States. It is the state's largest city outside the Boise metropolitan area. As of the 2020 Un ...

and was an extension (inc fuel reprocessing) to the

, which achieved first criticality in 1965 and ran for 30 years. The Integral Fast Reactor project (and EBR II) was shut down by the U.S. Congress in 1994. GEH continued work on the concept until 2001.

Possible US demonstration reactor

In October 2010, GEH signed a memorandum of understanding with the operators of the Department of Energy's (DOE)

Savannah River site The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States in the state of South Carolina, located on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River, southeast of August ...

, which should allow the construction of a demonstration reactor prior to the design receiving full NRC licensing approval.

UK interest in PRISM - 2012

In October 2011, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' reported that the UK

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, formed by the Energy Act 2004. It evolved from the Coal and Nuclear Liabilities Unit of the Department ...

(NDA) and senior advisers within the

Department of Energy and Climate Change The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom created on 3 October 2008, by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take over some of the functions related to energy of the Department for Busin ...

(DECC) had asked for technical and financial details of the PRISM, partly as a means of reducing the country's

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exh ...

stockpile. In July 2012, GEH submitted a feasibility report to the NDA showing that the PRISM could provide a cost-effective way of quickly dealing with the UK's plutonium stockpile. The feasibility report includes an assessment from the consultancy firm DBD Limited suggesting there are "no fundamental impediment(s)" to the licensing of the PRISM in the UK. A 2012 ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...

'' article pointed out that a new generation of fast reactors such as the PRISM "could dispose of the waste problem, reducing the threat of radiation and

nuclear proliferation Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...

, and at the same time generate vast amounts of low-carbon energy". David J. C. MacKay, chief scientist at the DECC, was quoted as saying that British plutonium contains enough energy to run the country's electricity grid for 500 years. Recent announcements of planned expansion of nuclear power in the UK have made no reference to PRISM.

Possible role in the Versatile Test Reactor program

In 2018 PRISM was selected by Battelle Energy Alliance to support the DOE decision making on the

Versatile Test Reactor The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was a project by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a fast-neutron test reactor by 2026. Funding for the project was scrapped in 2022 History After the Fast Flux Test Facility and the Experimental Breeder R ...

(VTR) program. In February 2019, DOE expected to complete the initial stage of deciding whether to proceed with the VTR within a few weeks. The VTR program was scrapped in 2022.

References

External links

GE Hitachi: GE Hitachi PRISM , The Future of Nuclear Energy

Esquire Magazine: "Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming"

PRISM IFR (drawing)

S-PRISM Fuel Cycle Study,Proceedings of ICAPP ’03

The Guardian article: Nuclear waste-burning reactor moves a step closer to reality

{{Nuclear fission reactors Unfinished nuclear reactors