Economics of Thorium Fuel Cycles

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Thorium utilization appears to permit development of an advanced technology involving fuel handling, processing, and refabricating on an economic basis. Based on U. S. cost rules, countercurrent fueling, and a throw-away cycle, heavy-water reactors fueled with Th-U/sup 235/ had fuel costs as low as natural-uranium-fueled systems. The spent fuel from the thorium system contained four times as much fissionable fuel as that from the natural-uranium system, and so processing costs and/or refabrication costs for the thorium fuel could be relatively high and still be economical. With fuel processing, U. S. processing charges, and uniform-batch fueling, light-water reactors fueled with Th-U/sup … continued below

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36 pages : illustrations

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Kasten, Paul R.; Alexander, L. G.; Carlsmith, R. & Van Winkle, R. June 22, 1961.

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Thorium utilization appears to permit development of an advanced technology involving fuel handling, processing, and refabricating on an economic basis. Based on U. S. cost rules, countercurrent fueling, and a throw-away cycle, heavy-water reactors fueled with Th-U/sup 235/ had fuel costs as low as natural-uranium-fueled systems. The spent fuel from the thorium system contained four times as much fissionable fuel as that from the natural-uranium system, and so processing costs and/or refabrication costs for the thorium fuel could be relatively high and still be economical. With fuel processing, U. S. processing charges, and uniform-batch fueling, light-water reactors fueled with Th-U/sup 235/ had lower fuel costs than slightly-enriched-uranium reactors; for higher neutron- economy systems, the uranium reactors had lower fuel costs in the initial uniform batch cycle, but recycle of thorium fuel was generally more economic than recycle of uranium fuel. Based on the existence of an economic, advanced technology, calculated fuel-cycle costs for thorium-breeder reactors (including special-materials inventory charges) were less than 1 mill/kwh. The aqueous- homogeneous breeder reactor studied bad a fuel cost of about 0.9 mill/kwh at a fuel yield of 7% per year, while a molten-salt-breeder reactor had a fuel cost of about 0.6 mill/kwh at a fuel yield of 1% per year. (auth)

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36 pages : illustrations

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Digitized from microopaque cards (2).

Includes bibliographic references (pages 35-36)

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  • Report No.: CF-61-6-83
  • Grant Number: W-7405-eng-26
  • SuDoc Number: Y 3.At 7:22/CF-61-6-83
  • Accession or Local Control No: metadc1241237
  • Archival Resource Key: ark:/67531/metadc1241237

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  • June 22, 1961

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  • March 10, 2023, 7:25 p.m.

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  • Feb. 9, 2026, 8:26 a.m.

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Kasten, Paul R.; Alexander, L. G.; Carlsmith, R. & Van Winkle, R. Economics of Thorium Fuel Cycles, report, June 22, 1961; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1241237/: accessed March 16, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

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