ISSUES BEARING ON THE NEED FOR AND THE TIMING OF THE U.S.

LIQUID METAL FAST BREEDER REACTOR

OVERVIEW

Current U.S. light water cooled reactors (LWR's) can release only about 1 percent of the energy stored in uranium. At this level of utilization, known U.S. reserves of high-grade uranium ore represent an energy resource no greater than U.S. reserves of oil or natural gas and are only a few percent as large as U.S. coal resources.

Despite this limited resource base, the Atomic Energy Commission and its successor agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration have projected for the year 2000 a nuclear-electric industry two to four times larger (in terms of power produced) than the total U.S. electrical utility industry in 1975.

If this power were produced by LWR's, currently estimated U.S. resources of high-grade uranium ore would be exhausted in a matter of decades. The AEC and ERDA have therefore made their number one energy R. & D. priority the development of a "breeder" reactor which would almost fully exploit the energy content of uranium. Virtually all the attention-both in the United States and abroad— has been focused on one breeder concept, the liquid metal-cooled fast breeder reactor (LMFBR).

Both the need for and desirability of the breeder are currently under hot debate:

With regard to the need, the proponents argue that uranium (as exploited by the LMFBR) and coal are the only two energy sources which can supply significantly increased amounts of energy for the U.S. economy by the year 2000. They believe that both of these resources must be exploited vigorously to compensate for dwindling U.S. production of oil and natural gas and to accommodate anticipated growth in energy consumption. The opponents respond that increased efficiency in the use of energy can make a massive buildup of nuclear power unnecessary in the short term and that solar energy would be a benign alternative to the LMFBR in the longer term.

With regard to the desirability, the opponents emphasize the fact that the LMFBR would commit the United States (and the world) to a "plutonium economy." They fear that the large-scale processing of plutonium which would be associated with the LMFBR technology would result in unacceptable levels of contamination of the environment by this manmade element, in thefts of plutonium by terrorist groups intent on making "homemade” nuclear bombs, and to a more rapid spread of nuclear weapons capability to currently nonnuclear nations. The proponents believe that the problems of keeping plutonium out of the environment and out of the hands of terrorists are manageable and that the

introduction of LMFBR technology would not significantly exacerbate the proliferation problem.

To some extent the debate over the breeder has merged with the larger debate over the need and desirability of fission power generally. To the extent that a vigorous breeder development program is symbolic of a long-term national commitment to fission energy, this connection may be legitimate. In the shorter term, however, the connection is not so close: There may be reasons for delaying a final decision on the breeder even if the hazards associated with current commercial nuclear reactors are found to be acceptable.

The principal focus of concern specific to the LMFBR stems from the fact that plutonium recycle is essential for the breeder whereas it is a relatively marginal proposition for LWR's.

The "plutonium economy" is so tightly connected with the breeder technology because the LMFBR exploits the 99 percent of uranium which current reactors do not by transmuting ("breeding") it into the chain reacting element plutonium, most of which must be recycled before it is consumed. LWR's produce some plutonium but not enough that recycling it will result in large increases in the efficiency of uranium utilization.

Much of the uncertainty associated with the debate over the LMFBR stems from the fact that, in the past, while much attention was being devoted to solving the difficult technical problems of design, too little attention was being devoted to the "soft" questions which require an assessment of the performance of human beings and their institutions:

Will the introduction of a U.S. civilian nuclear industry based on a "plutonium economy" significantly speed the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries?

Would a U.S. plutonium industry be well enough guarded to prevent nongovernmental groups from stealing plutonium and manufacturing their own nuclear weapons for purposes of blackmail or terrorism?

Would a U.S. plutonium industry be well enough managed and regulated to keep the "leakage" of plutonium and other long-lived radioactive materials into the environment down to tolerable level?

As a result of the current debate, these questions are now receiving serious attention but, at the best, it will be some time, probably years, before there will be anything approaching a consensus concerning the answers either in the technical or in the larger political community. In the meantime it would appear to be wise to postpone for a number of years final decisions about implementing the plutonium economy commercially-with either current LWR's or with breeders.

Revised estimates of future U.S. energy demand make this judgment easier. Past projections implicitly assumed that the real price of energy would continue to decline as it did during the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, however, the dramatic increases of the past few years of both the price of powerplants and fuel have already increased the real price of energy well above the 1950 price levels and there is now every expectation that the real price increases will continue-although

With these price rises it seems reasonable to expect growth rates in the demand for energy to decrease substantially as energy becomes more expensive and increased efficiency in the use of energy becomes worth investing in. Past official projections for the future growth of nuclear energy are therefore beginning to look increasingly questionable.

The most recent of the ERDA projections (spring 1975) had nuclear energy generating electric power at an average rate of 440 million to 880 million kilowatts by the year 2000-which is to be compared with the approximately 200 million kilowatts generated by the entire electrical utility industry in 1975. To obtain this enormous growth rate, ERDA made the following assumptions: (a) Total U.S. energy consumption would increase by between 80 to 160 percent by the year 2000, (b) The fraction of U.S. fuel devoted to the production of electrical energy would approximately double (from about 25 percent to over 50 percent), and (c) Nuclear-electric powerplants would generate between 55 and 76 percent of all electric power consumed in 2000 (up from approximately 10 percent in 1975).

Are these projections realistic? There appears to be an increasing consensus both inside and outside ERDA that they are not. Even if the utilities were able to obtain the necessary trillion or so dollars of capital, the nuclear industry were able to bring the plants into operation at the necessary rate of 150 plants a year by the year 2000, and it was possible to obtain acceptable sites for all of these powerplants, there would still be the question as to who would buy all that power at the new high prices. Even if the electrical share of the energy market continues to expand, the slowed growth rate of total energy consumption will result in a slower growth for electrical energy. This will in turn bring about a decreased rate of construction of new nuclear-electric capacity-a trend which is already well begun. It seems likely that even the low end of ERDA's range of estimated year 2000 nuclear capacity will turn out to be high-and in fact, an informal inquiry at ERDA revealed that the projection which the agency described as "moderate/low" a year ago is now labeled "high."

Lower growth rates of electrical consumption would save the United States from any imminent danger of running out of high-grade uranium ore. Currently ERDA estimates U.S. reserves and probable resources of uranium at about 111⁄2 million tons-enough to fuel approximately 360 million kilowatts of nuclear power for 30 years (the estimated lifetime of a nuclear plant). This corresponds at a 65 percent average capacity factor for a nuclear generating capacity of 550 million kilowatts. It seems highly unlikely now that U.S. nuclear capacity will exceed this value by the year 2000. By that time it is likely also that additional uranium resources will have been identified and that the nuclear fuel cycle can have been made as much as twice as efficient as today in its use of uranium without plutonium recycle. There seems therefore to be no reason to rush the decision to go ahead with the LMFBR or with any other version of the plutonium economy.

From this perspective it appears that the almost exclusive emphasis on the LMFBR in the Nation's R. & D. program over the past decade has been unfortunate. It has given us an energy option which may or

may not be exploited some decades hence, but it has left us with too few options to be exploited during the next decades.

In view of the uncertain political future of fission, it is important now to develop such alternative energy options. The objective of the Nation's energy R. & D. program in these changing times should be diversity and flexibility. From this perspective it is encouraging to see ERDA's activities increasing in the areas of energy conservation and solar energy. These efforts are still relatively small and tentative, however, in comparison to the LMFBR program and the emphasis in the President's fiscal 1977 budget remains on fission: In this budget $839 million authorization is requested for fission (mostly LMFBR related) which is to be compared with $120 million for energy conservation and $160 million for solar energy. The increases over the previous budget authorization are: $45 million for energy conservation, $45 million for solar energy, and $224 million for fission. Obviously funds should not be channeled into solar and energy conservation research and development projects more rapidly than they can be effectively utilized. Projects with major potential payoffs are being identified in these areas, however and, unless available energy R. & D. funds are channeled preferentially into those areas, there appears to be a real danger that the lion's share of funding increases will be absorbed by the continual cost overruns of the LMFBR program.

If flexibility and diversity are required in the Nation's overall energy R. & D. program they are also important within the fission R. & D. program itself. Unfortunately the trend here seems to be in the opposite direction. Virtually the entire fission R. & D. effort is now devoted to solving the problems of the LMFBR and LWR technologies. The snowballing budget is not evidence of new initiatives, rather it reflects mainly tremendous cost overruns and efforts to deal with proliferating safety issues without making any basic changes in the reactor designs. In fact, in the future annals of fission R. & D., fiscal 1976 is likely to be remembered less for the results of the half a billion dollars invested in LMFBR technology than for the virtual termination of R. & D. on two reactor designs based on the "thorium economy” which offered an alternative to the "plutonium economy." It is not certain at this time that a fission fuel cycle based on thorium would ultimately prove to be more benign than one based on the plutonium breeder. It is certain, however, that many of the problems would be quite different. At a time when the concept of a plutonium economy is under such vigorous attack, one would think that interest in thoriumbased reactors would increase. Instead the commercial developer of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor went out of the business for lack of Federal interest and the budget for work on the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor was cut from $4 million in fiscal 1976 to zero in the administration's proposed budget for 1977.

The purpose of the report which follows is to provide to Congress

1. THE RATIONALE FOR THE BREEDER REACTOR

In the winter of 1973-74 the oil exporting nations demonstrated dramatically that control over the international oil market had shifted from the consumers to the suppliers. The price of international oil rose several fold putting a serious strain on the economies of the oil importing nations. Perhaps as important was the discovery by the major oil exporting nations of the Middle East of the political leverage inherent in their control over the fuel supplies of the oil importing nations. In the United States and in many other nations increased "energy independence" became a national policy goal.

Since that time it has become apparent, however, that increasing the domestic supplies of energy will not be an easy task. In the United States the production of both oil and natural gas have begun to decline and current estimates of recoverable U.S. resources of these fuels indicate that it is unlikely that they can continue to supply the bulk of U.S. energy beyond the year 2000.

The resource situation for coal is much more favorable but there are very serious environmental and occupational health problems currently associated with both coal mining and coal burning. Even greater environmental problems can be expected with the exploitation of the other major U.S. fossil fuel resource, oil shale.

An additional concern which applies to the use of all fossil fuels stems from the fact that about one half of the carbon dioxide produced by their combustion in the past has accumulated in the atmosphere. Some climatologists are concerned that a continued buildup in atmospheric CO2 may result within decades in changes in the Earth's climate large enough to have a major impact on world agriculture. [1]

The stage therefore appears to be set for the introduction into the U.S. energy supply of one or more major new energy sources not dependent on fossil fuels. Currently the prime candidates are the fission of heavy atoms, sunlight, and the fusion of light atoms.

In the past decades the greatest priority in U.S. energy research and development has been accorded to the development of economical fission power. Recently, however, the energy crisis and controversy concerning the safety, and environmental hazards associated with fission energy have led to a dramatic increase in the levels of funding devoted to solar and fusion energy. It will be several years, however, in the case of solar energy and perhaps decades in the case of fusion, before their potentials and limitations are as well established as are those of fission energy. It would therefore appear to be premature to foreclose the future of fission energy before the policy issues relating to the alternatives become more clearly defined.

It is in this context then that we confront the issues posed by the proposed liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactor (LMFBR).

NOTE. All footnotes to the text appear at the end of the repor and begin on p. 21.