Traveling Wave Reactor
A traveling-wave reactor (TWR) is a type of fourth-generation nuclear reactor that nuclear engineers anticipate can convert fertile material into usable fuel through nuclear transmutation in tandem with the burnup of fissile material. TWRs differ from other kinds of fast-neutron and breeder reactors in their ability to utilize fuel efficiently without uranium enrichment or reprocessing, instead directly using depleted uranium, natural uranium, thorium, spent fuel removed from light water reactors, or some combination of these materials. The name refers to the fact that fission does not occur throughout the entire TWR core, but remains confined to a boundary zone that slowly advances through the core over time. TWRs could theoretically run, self-sustained, for decades without refueling or removing any spent fuel from the reactor.
Read more about Traveling Wave Reactor: History, Reactor Physics, Fuel, Traveling Wave Vs. Standing Wave, Concept Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words traveling and/or wave:
“If the British prose style is Churchillian, America is the tobacco auctioneer, the barker; Runyon, Lardner, W.W., the traveling salesman who can sell the world the Brooklyn Bridge every day, can put anything over on you and convince you that tomatoes grow at the South Pole.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“I sometimes compare press officers to riflemen on the Somme—mowing down wave upon wave of distortion, taking out rank upon rank of supposition, deduction and gossip.”
—Bernard Ingham (b. 1932)