Breeder reactor

A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. These devices achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to breed more fissile fuel than they use from fertile material, such as uranium-238 or thorium-232. Breeders were at first found attractive because their fuel economy was better than light water reactors, but interest declined after the 1960s as more uranium reserves were found, and new methods of uranium enrichment reduced fuel costs.

Fuel efficiency and types of nuclear waste

Breeder reactors could, in principle, extract almost all of the energy contained in uranium or thorium, decreasing fuel requirements by a factor of 100 compared to widely-used once-through light water reactors, which extract less than 1% of the energy in the uranium mined from the earth. The high fuel efficiency of breeder reactors could greatly reduce concerns about fuel supply or energy used in mining. Adherents claim that with seawater uranium extraction, there would be enough fuel for breeder reactors to satisfy our energy needs for 5 billion years at 1983's total energy consumption rate, thus making nuclear energy effectively a renewable energy.