E. BOMBONI

No description

The pebble bed gas-cooled reactor is one of the most promising concepts among the Generation III and Generation IV reactors. Currently, the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) design, both U and Pu and minor actinide fueled, is being developed. Modeling the arrangement of coated particles (CPs) inside a spherical region like a pebble seems to be...

Preliminary analyses already performed showed that innovative GCRs, both thermal and fast, are very promising candidate to reach the Gen-IV sustainability goal. The integrated LWR-HTR-GCFR basically aims at closing the current nuclear fuel cycle: in principle, thanks to the unique characteristics of Helium coolant reactors, LWR SNF along with...

This paper presents a critical review of the recent improvements in minimizing nuclear waste in terms of quantities, long-term activities, and radiotoxicities by innovative GCRs, with particular emphasis to the results obtained at the University of Pisa. Regarding these last items, in the frame of some EU projects (GCFR, PUMA, and RAPHAEL), we...

The paper deals with the use of a symbiotic cycle in order to minimize the LWR waste radiotoxicity, improving, on the same line, previous work[1]. The obtained results could be considered rather positive. We will show what is possible to do in this field using new original symbiotic cycles, remarkably improving the previous results. To reach...

Nowadays nuclear is the only greenhouse-free source that can appreciably respond to the increasing worldwide energy demand. The use of Thorium in the nuclear energy production may offer some advantages to accomplish this task. Extensive R&D on the thorium fuel cycle has been conducted in many countries around the world. Starting from the...

Problems about future energy availability, climate changes, and air quality seem to play an important role in energy production. While current reactor generations provide a guaranteed and economical energy production, new nuclear power plant generation would increase the ways and purposes in which nuclear energy can be used. To explore these...