European Resarch Programme for the Transmutation of High Level Nuclear Waste in an Accelerator Driven System

Abstract

The Integrated Project EUROTRANS (EURopean Research Programme for the TRANSmutation of High Level Nuclear Waste in an Accelerator Driven System) within the ongoing EURATOM 6th European Commission Framework Programme (FP6) is devoted to the study of transmutation of high-level waste from nuclear power plants. The work is focused on transmutation in an Accelerator Driven System (ADS). The objective of EUROTRANS is the assessment of the design and the feasibility of an industrial ADS prototype dedicated to transmutation. The necessary R&D results in the areas of fuel development, structural materials, thermal-hydraulics, heavy liquid metal technology and nuclear data will be made available, together with the experimental demonstration of the ADS component coupling. The outcome of this work will allow to provide a reasonably reliable assessment of technological feasibility and a cost estimate for ADS based transmutation, and to possibly decide on the detailed design of an experimental ADS and its construction in the future. EUROTRANS is integrating critical masses of resources (23M€ EC contribution, 43M€ total eligible costs) and activities of 47 participants from 14 countries, within the industry (10 participants), the national research centres (19) and 17 universities in Europe. The universities are collectively represented by ENEN (European Nuclear Engineering Network). EUROTRANS is the logical continuation of the three FP5 Clusters FUETRA, BASTRA and TESTRA together with the PDS-XADS Project. It takes credit from the Roadmap on P&T of the Technical Working Group [1]. EUROTRANS strengthens and consolidate the European research and development activities in transmutation. The involvement of universities strengthens education and training in nuclear technologies. The involvement of industries assures a market-oriented and economic design development and an effective dissemination of the results.