The Possible Use of a CANDU Reactor as a Dual-Temperature Heat Source

Abstract

The increasing interest in synthetic hydrocarbon production in North America, together with preliminary plans now being laid in Canada for a future highly-developed hydrogen economy, call for high-grade, long-term, non-fossil, energy sources which can provide adequate quantities of process heat at the exajoule level. Whereas the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor has been considered for a number of years as a suitable and reliable process heat source, the pressurized- water family of reactors, including the CANDU heavy water reactor, have not so far been able to achieve the required temperatures. In the present paper, a new fuel element is proposed which is intended to provide the appropriate proportions of high-quality process heat. It is designed for use in regular channels of CANDU reactors such as those in operation at Bruce NGS.