Superphénix (French pronunciation: [sypɛʁfeniks]; English: Superphoenix, SPX) was a nuclear power station prototype on the Rhône river at Creys-Malville in France, close to the border with Switzerland. Superphénix was a 1,242 MWe fast breeder reactor with the twin goals of reprocessing nuclear fuel from France's line of conventional nuclear reactors, while also being an economical generator of power on its own. As of 2024, Superphénix remains the largest breeder reactor ever built. Construction began in 1976, the reactor went critical in 1985 and was connected to the grid in 1986. The project suffered cost overruns, delays and enormous public protests. Overall, the reactor totalized a very low operation factor of 14.4%. Despite many technical issues related to being a first-of-a-kind project most of its downtime was caused by administrative procedure: the plant was technically capable of resuming operations but was forbidden to do so. Technical problems were solved over time and, by 1996, the plant had reached an availability of 95%. The plant was powered down in December 1996 for maintenance, and while it was closed it was subject to court challenges that prevented its restart. In June 1997, the newly appointed Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, announced that Superphénix would be closed permanently; this was made official by ministerial decree in December 1998.
Design
Background France had considered the problem of plutonium production just after the end of World War II. At the time, the conventional solution to this problem was to use a graphite moderated air or water cooled reactor fueled with natural uranium, such as the UNGG. Such designs have little economic value in terms of power production, but are simple solutions to the problem of "breeding" plutonium fuel, which can then be separated from the original uranium fuel with chemical processing. It had long been known that another solution to the breeder reactor design was to replace the graphite with liquid sodium metal. The graphite is used as a moderator, slowing the neutrons released in the nuclear reactions to a speed that makes other uranium atoms receptive to them. If the natural uranium fuel is replaced with fuel sensitive to fast neutrons, typically highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the reaction can run without the use of a moderator. While this design eliminates the need for a moderator, the core still needs to be cooled. Ideally the coolant would be both highly efficient, allowing the core size to be reduced, as well as being largely transparent to neutrons. The most studied example of such a material is liquid sodium, although salts and other metals have also been used. This not only greatly reduces the size of the reactor, but the fast neutrons from a single reaction are capable of causing several breeding reactions. By surrounding the core with additional fertile material such as natural uranium, or even nuclear waste from other reactors, the breeding reaction will take place in a larger volume and in otherwise useless materials. This section is known as the blanket. Such a design also has the quality that it generates more fuel than it consumes, as long as the breeding ratio is greater than 1. Such a design has three major advantages over conventional military designs.
The entire reaction cycle occurs much faster so it breeds new fuel at a faster rate It can use a wider variety of breeding materials because it is not used as the fuel as well It generates ample amounts of heat, which can be used to produce power The downside is that it has to be fueled with some sort of enriched fuel, although the fissile material being bred in the blanket can be used.
Earlier work and Phénix
Plans for a French fast reactor date as far back as 1958's Rapsodie, and followed up in 1964 for a larger design with a power output of 1 GWe. Construction of the Rapsodie facility started in 1962 and went critical on 28 January 1967. It did not have power producing systems, but its 22 MW of thermal output (MWth) would translate to perhaps 8 MW of electrical output (MWe). Experiments on core configurations were carried out in the Masurca facility starting in 1966, and design of a larger power-producing facility was already well underway. During the 1960s, interest in nuclear power was reaching a crescendo. For France, with little uranium supply of its own, large-scale nuclear generation would be subject to supply constraints, especially given that nuclear power was experiencing a boom in construction that suggested the available supply would be limited even on a worldwide basis. In France's plans, breeders would serve the twin purposes of producing fuel for its conventional light water reactor fleet, as well as producing that fuel from the waste fuel from those reactors, thereby reducing the amount of nuclear waste it would have to dispose of. Only a small number of breeders, estimated to be around 20, would be required to fuel the fleet of about 200 light water reactors. France began construction of the Phénix demonstration plant in November 1968, only a year after Rapsodie went critical. It was fueled with 931 kg of reactor grade plutonium with around 77% Pu-239 (weapons grade is at least 93%). The fuel load is capable of running for about 90 days maximum, but in practice it normally ran for two month periods. Due to its design, refueling required the reactor to be shut down. As a result, it had a low capacity factor (CF), on the order of 65%. As a prototype plant, a high CF was not a design goal, although any practical design would have to improve this. Phénix demonstrated a breeding ratio of 1.16, meaning it produced 16% more fuel than it consumed, while also producing 233 MWe in normal operation. Phénix ran without problems through the 1970s and 1980s, but between 1989 and 1990 experienced 4 power transients which triggered automatic SCRAM. A 1991 report did not clearly identify the cause. In 1993 renovation and life extension works started. The reactor was restarted in 2003 with a reduced power of 130 MWe.
Superphénix
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