The Traveling Wave Reactor: Design and Development

The traveling wave reactor (TWR) is a once-through reactor that uses in situ breeding to greatly reduce the need for enrichment and reprocessing. Breeding converts incoming subcritical reload fuel into new critical fuel, allowing a breed-burn wave to propagate. The concept works on the basis that breed-burn waves and the fuel move relative to one another. Thus either the fuel or the waves may move relative to the stationary observer. The most practical embodiments of the TWR involve moving the fuel while keeping the nuclear reactions in one place−sometimes referred to as the standing wave reactor (SWR). TWRs can operate with uranium reload fuels including totally depleted uranium, natural uranium, and low-enriched fuel (e.g., 5.5% 235U and below), which ordinarily would not be critical in a fast spectrum. Spent light water reactor (LWR) fuel may also serve as TWR reload fuel. In each of these cases, very efficient fuel usage and significant reduction of waste volumes are achieved without the need for reprocessing. The ultimate advantages of the TWR are realized when the reload fuel is depleted uranium, where after the startup period, no enrichment facilities are needed to sustain the first reactor and a chain of successor reactors. TerraPower's conceptual and engineering design and associated technology development activities have been underway since late 2006, with over 50 institutions working in a highly coordinated effort to place the first unit in operation by 2026. This paper summarizes the TWR technology: its development program, its progress, and an analysis of its social and economic benefits.