<p>The use of hydrogen is predicted to increase substantially in the future, both as chemical feedstock and also as energy carrier for transportation. The annual world production of hydrogen amounts to some 50 million tonnes and the majority is produced using fossil fuels like natural gas, coal and naphtha. High temperature nuclear reactors (HTRs) represent a novel way to produce hydrogen at large scale with high efficiency and less carbon footprint. The aim of this master thesis has been to evaluate the feasibility of HTRs for hydrogen production by analyzing both the reactor concept and its potential to be used in certain hydrogen niche markets. The work covers the production, storage, distribution and use of hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles and aviation and as chemical feedstock for the oil refining and ammonia production industry.</p><p>The study indicates that HTRs may be suitable for hydrogen production under certain conditions. However, the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier necessitates a widespread hydrogen infrastructure (e.g. pipe-lines, refuelling stations and large scale storage), which is associated with major energy losses. Both mentioned industries could benefit from nuclear-based hydrogen with less infrastructural changes, but the potential market is by far smaller than if hydrogen is used as an energy carrier. A maximum of about 60 HTRs of 600 MWth worldwide has been estimated for the ammonia production industry. The Swedish refineries are likely too small to utilize the HTR but in the larger refineries HTR might be applicable.</p>

The use of hydrogen is predicted to increase substantially in the future, both as chemical feedstock and also as energy carrier for transportation. The annual world production of hydrogen amounts to some 50 million tonnes and the majority is produced using fossil fuels like natural gas, coal and naphtha. High temperature nuclear reactors (HTRs) represent a novel way to produce hydrogen at large scale with high efficiency and less carbon footprint. The aim of this master thesis has been to evaluate the feasibility of HTRs for hydrogen production by analyzing both the reactor concept and its potential to be used in certain hydrogen niche markets. The work covers the production, storage, distribution and use of hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles and aviation and as chemical feedstock for the oil refining and ammonia production industry. The study indicates that HTRs may be suitable for hydrogen production under certain conditions. However, the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier necessitates a widespread hydrogen infrastructure (e.g. pipe-lines, refuelling stations and large scale storage), which is associated with major energy losses. Both mentioned industries could benefit from nuclear-based hydrogen with less infrastructural changes, but the potential market is by far smaller than if hydrogen is used as an energy carrier. A maximum of about 60 HTRs of 600 MWth worldwide has been estimated for the ammonia production industry. The Swedish refineries are likely too small to utilize the HTR but in the larger refineries HTR might be applicable.

To assure nuclear power sustainability, ongoing efforts on advanced closed-fuel cycle options and adapted open cycles have led to investigations of various strategies involving utilization of Transuranic (TRU) nuclides in nuclear reactors. Due to favorable performance characteristics, multiple studies are focused on transmutation options using High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs). Prismatic HTGRs allow for 3-Dimensional (3D) fuel shuffling and prior shuffling algorithms were based on experimental block movement and/or manual block shuffle patterns. In this dissertation, a physics based 3D multi-directional reloading algorithm for prismatic deep burn very high temperature reactors (DB-VHTRs) was developed and tested to meet DB-VHTR operation constraints utilizing a high fidelity neutronics model developed for this dissertation. The high fidelity automated neutronics model allows design flexibility and metric tracking in spatial and temporal dimensions. Reduction of TRUs in DB-VHTRs utilizing full vectors of TRUs from light water reactor spent nuclear fuel has been demonstrated for both a single and two-fuel composition cores. Performance of the beginning-of-life and end-of-life (EOL) domains for multi-dimensional permutations were evaluated. Utilizing a two-fuel assembly permutation within the two-fuel system domain for a Single-Fuel vector, the developed shuffling algorithm for this dissertation has successfully been tested to meet performance objectives and operation constraints.

In the deep burn research of Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR), it is desired to make an accurate estimation of absorption cross sections and absorption rates in burnable poison (BP) pins. However, in traditional methods, multi-group cross sections are generated from single bundle calculations with specular reflection boundary condition, in which the energy spectral effect in the core environment is not taken into account. This approximation introduces errors to the absorption cross sections especially for BPs neighboring reflectors and control rods. In order to correct the BP absorption cross sections in whole core diffusion calculations, energy spectrum reconstruction (ESR) methods have been developed to reconstruct the fine group spectrum (and in-core continuous energy spectrum). Then, using the reconstructed spectrum as boundary condition, a BP pin cell local transport calculation serves an imbedded module within the whole core diffusion code to iteratively correct the BP absorption cross sections for improved results. The ESR methods were tested in a 2D prismatic High Temperature Reactor (HTR) problem. The reconstructed fine-group spectra have shown good agreement with the reference spectra. Comparing with the cross sections calculated by single block calculation with specular reflection boundary conditions, the BP absorption cross sections are effectively improved by ESR methods. A preliminary study was also performed to extend the ESR methods to a 2D Pebble Bed Reactor (PBR) problem. The results demonstrate that the ESR can reproduce the energy spectra on the fuel-outer reflector interface accurately.

A new whole-core transport method is described for 3-D hexagonal geometry. This is an extension of a stochastic-deterministic hybrid method which has previously been shown highly accurate and efficient for eigenvalue problems. Via Monte Carlo, it determines the solution to the transport equation in sub-regions of reactor cores, such as individual fuel elements or sections thereof, and uses those solutions to compose a library of response expansion coefficients. The information acquired allows the deterministic solution procedure to arrive at the whole core solution for the eigenvalue and the explicit fuel pin fission density distribution more quickly than other transport methods. Because it solves the transport equation stochastically, complicated geometry may be modeled exactly and therefore heterogeneity even at the most detailed level does not challenge the method. In this dissertation, the method is evaluated using comparisons with full core Monte Carlo reference solutions of benchmark problems based on gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor core designs. Solutions are given for core eigenvalue problems, the calculation of fuel pin fission densities throughout the core, and the determination of incremental control rod worth. Using a single processor, results are found in minutes for small cores, and in no more than a few hours for a realistically large core. Typical eigenvalues calculated by the method differ from reference solutions by less than 0.1%, and pin fission density calculations have average accuracy of well within 1%, even for unrealistically challenging core configuration problems. This new method enables the accurate determination of core eigenvalues and flux shapes in hexagonal cores with efficiency far exceeding that of other transport methods.

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The closure of the nuclear fuel cycle is a topic of interest in the sustainability context of nuclear energy. The implication of such closure includes considerations of nuclear waste management. This originates from the fact that a closed fuel cycle requires recycling of useful materials from spent nuclear fuel and discarding of non-usable streams of the spent fuel, which are predominantly the fission products. The fission products represent the near-term concerns associated with final geological repositories for the waste stream. Long-lived fission products also contribute to the long-term concerns associated with such repository. In addition, an ultimately closed nuclear fuel cycle in which all actinides from spent nuclear fuels are incinerated will result in fission products being the only source of radiotoxicity. Hence, it is desired to develop a transmutation strategy that will achieve reduction in the inventory and radiological parameters of significant fission products within a reasonably short time. In this dissertation, a transmutation strategy involving the use of the VHTR is developed. A set of specialized metrics is developed and applied to evaluate performance characteristics. The transmutation strategy considers six major fission products: 90Sr, 93Zr, 99Tc, 129I, 135Cs and 137Cs. In this approach, the unique core features of VHTRs operating in equilibrium fuel cycle mode of 405 effective full power days are used for transmutation of the selected fission products. A 30 year irradiation period with 10 post-irradiation cooling is assumed. The strategy assumes no separation of each nuclide from its corresponding material stream in the VHTR fuel cycle. The optimum locations in the VHTR core cavity leading to maximized transmutation of each selected nuclides are determined. The fission product transmutation scenarios are simulated with MCNP and ORIGEN-S. The results indicate that the developed fission product transmutation strategy offers an excellent potential approach for the reduction of inventories and radiological parameters, particularly for long-lived fission products (93Zr, 99Tc, 129I and 135Cs). It has been determined that the in-core transmutation of relatively short-lived fission products (90Sr and 137Cs) has minimal advantage over a decay-only scenario for these nuclides. It is concluded that the developed strategy is a viable option for the reduction of radiotoxicity contributions of the selected fission products prior to their final disposal in a geological repository. Even in the cases where the transmutation advantage is minimal, it is deemed that the improvement gained, coupled with the virtual storage provided for the fission products during the irradiation period, makes the developed fission product transmutation strategy advantageous in the spent fuel management scenarios. Combined with the in-core incineration options for TRU, the developed transmutation strategy leads to potential achievability of engineering time scales in the comprehensive nuclear waste management.

Minimization of HLW inventories and U consumption are key elements guaranteeing nuclear energy expansion. The integration of complex nuclear systems into a viable cycle yet constitutes a challenging multi-parametric optimization problem. The reactors and fuel cycle performance parameters may be strongly dependent on minor variations in the system's input data. Proven discrepancies in nuclear data evaluations could affect the validity of the system optimization metrics. This study first analyzes various advanced AP1000-VHTR fuel cycle scenarios by assessing their TRU destruction and their U consumption minimization capabilities, and by computing reactor performance parameters such as the time evolution of the effective multiplication factor keff, the reactors' energy spectrum or the isotopic composition/activity at EOL. The performance metrics dependence to prompt neutron fission spectrum discrepancies is then quantified to assess the viability of one strategy. Fission spectrum evaluations are indeed intensively used in reactors' calculations. Discrepancies higher than 10% have been computed among nuclear data libraries for energies above 8MeV for 235U. TRU arising from a 3wt% 235U-enriched UO2-fueled AP1000 were incinerated in a VHTR. Fuels consisting of 20%, 40% and 100% of TRU completed by UO2 were examined. MCNPX results indicate that up to 88.9% of the TRU initially present in a VHTR fueled with 20% of TRU and 80% of ThO2 were transmuted. Additionally, the use of WgPu instead of RgPu should reduce the daily consumption of 235U by 1.3 and augment core lifetime. To estimate the system metrics dependence to fission spectrum discrepancies and validate optimization studies outputs, the VTHR 235U fission spectrum distribution was altered successively in three manners. keff is at worst lowered by 1.7% of the reference value and the energy spectrum by 5% between 50meV and 2MeV when a significantly distorted fission spectrum tail is used. 233U, 236Pu and 237Pu inventories and activities are multiplied by 263, 523 and 34 but are still negligible compared to 239Pu mass or the total activity. The AP1000-VHTR system is in conclusion not dependent on the selected fission spectrum variations. TRU elimination optimization studies in AP1000-VHTR systems will be facilitated by freeing performance metrics dependency from 1 input parameter.

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