US-based Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) have announced an agreement to manufacture demonstration irradiation bundles of ANEEL fuel
These bundles are full-scale prototypes designed to match the physical specifications of fuel that are currently used in commercial reactors for the purpose of interface and irradiation testing.
ANEEL fuel is a technology that combines thorium with high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). This uranium component is enriched to between 5% and 20% of the uranium-235 isotope. In comparison, standard fuel for pressurized heavy-water reactors generally contains less than 0.72% uranium-235.
The fuel maintains the same external geometry as existing 19-element and 37-element fuel designs, which allows it to be integrated into current CANDU and pressurized heavy-water reactor systems without hardware or core design modifications.
It is designed to achieve higher burnup and improved fuel utilization in a once-through fuel cycle.
This design has the potential to reduce the total volume of long-lived spent fuel produced per unit of energy generated and to increase resistance to nuclear proliferation.
