Plant Design and Cost Assessment of Forced Circulation Lead-Bismuth Cooled Reactor with Conventional Power Conversion Cycles

Abstract

Cost of electricity is the key factor that determines competitiveness of a power plant. Thus the proper selection, design and optimization of the electric power generating cycle is of main importance. This report makes an assessment of power generation of the Actinide Burner Reactor (MABR). The reactor is a fast reactor cooled by lead bismuth eutectic. As a reference plant for capital cost evaluation, the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) reactor was used based on its 1994 capital and busbar cost estimates. Two balance of plant schemes have been evaluated - a steam cycle and a helium cycle. For the steam cycle, the reference plant is the ALMR steam cycle and for the helium cycle the power generating side of the Modular High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (MHTGR) was used. To identify the basic core design values, a hot channel analysis of the forced cooled core was performed. A scoping design study of the intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) for the helium cycle and the steam generator (SG) for the steam cycle was also carried out. Both were designed using the ALMR IHX as a base case in order to match the modularity criteria imposed on the reactor design and keep the MABR design as close to the reference plant as possible. The estimated cost of electricity for the helium cycle varies from 43.3 to 62.2 mills/kWhe, for the steam cycle from 30.5 to 33.3 mills/kWhe. These ranges in costs reflect the different thermal hydraulic cases.