S-PRISM

Drawing of the PRISM Reactor

S-PRISM (from SuperPRISM), also called PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module), is the name of a nuclear power plant design by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH).

The S-PRISM represents GEH's Generation IV reactor solution to closing the nuclear fuel cycle and is also part of its Advanced Recycling Center (ARC) proposition to U.S. Congress to deal with nuclear waste.

It is based on a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor called Integral Fast Reactor.^{[citation needed]}

The design utilizes reactor modules, each having a power output of 311 MWe, to enable factory fabrication at low cost.

Integral Fast Reactor

The Integral Fast Reactor was developed at the West Campus of the Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho and was the intended successor to the Experimental Breeder Reactor II,which achieved first criticality in 1965 and ran for 30 years. The Integral Fast Reactor project was shut down by the U.S. Congress in 1994.

Possible US demonstration reactor

In October 2010, GEH signed a memorandum of understanding with the operators of the Department of Energy's Savannah River site, which should allow the construction of a demonstration reactor prior to the design receiving full NRC licensing approval.

UK interest in PRISM

In October 2011, The Independent reported that the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and senior advisers within the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) had asked for technical and financial details of the PRISM, partly as a means of reducing the country's plutonium stockpile. In July 2012, GEH submitted a feasibility report to the NDA showing that the PRISM could provide a cost-effective way of quickly dealing with the UK's plutonium stockpile. The feasibility report includes an assessment from the consultancy firm DBD Limited suggesting there are "no fundamental impediment(s)" to the licensing of the PRISM in the UK. A 2012 Guardian article pointed out that a new generation of fast reactors such as the S-PRISM "could dispose of the waste problem, reducing the threat of radiation and nuclear proliferation, and at the same time generate vast amounts of low-carbon energy". David J. C. MacKay, chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, recently said that British plutonium contains enough energy to run the country's electricity grid for 500 years.

See also

• Small modular reactor
• Sodium-cooled fast reactor

External links

• GE Energy: PRISM Sodium-Cooled Reactor
• World Nuclear Association: Fast Neutron Reactors
• Esquire Magazine: "Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming"
• PRISM IFR (drawing)
• S-PRISM Fuel Cycle Study,Proceedings of ICAPP ’03
• The Guardian article: Nuclear waste-burning reactor moves a step closer to reality