ASTRID (''Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration'') was a proposal for a 600 MW sodium-cooled

fast breeder reactor A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. These reactors can be Nuclear fuel, fueled with more-commonly available isotopes of uranium and Isotopes of thorium, thorium, such as uranium-238 and t ...

( Generation IV), proposed by the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA). It was to be built on the

Marcoule Nuclear Site Marcoule Nuclear Site () is a nuclear facility in the Chusclan and Codolet communes, near Bagnols-sur-Cèze in the Gard department of France, which is in the tourist, wine and agricultural Côtes-du-Rhône region. The plant is around 25 ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It was the successor of the three French fast reactors

Rapsodie Rapsodie was an experimental nuclear reactor built in Cadarache in France. It was France's first fast reactor, and first achieved criticality in 1967. Rapsodie was a sodium-cooled fast neutron loop-type reactor with a thermal output of 40MW and ...

Phénix Phénix (French for phoenix) was a small-scale (gross 264/net 233 MWe) prototype fast breeder reactor, located at the Marcoule nuclear site, near Orange, France. It was a pool-type liquid-metal fast breeder reactor cooled with liquid sodium. ...

and

Superphénix Superphénix (; , SPX) was a nuclear power station prototype on the Rhône river at Creys-Mépieu, Creys-Malville in France, close to the border with Switzerland. Superphénix was a 1,242 MWe fast breeder reactor with the twin goals of reprocessi ...

. The main goals of ASTRID were the multi-recycling of

plutonium Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four ...

, aiming at preserving natural

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

resources,

minor actinide Minor may refer to: Common meanings * Minor (law), a person not under the age of certain legal activities. * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Mathematics * Minor (graph theory), a relation of one graph to ...

transmutation, aiming at reducing

nuclear waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...

, and an enhanced safety comparable to

Generation III reactor Generation III reactors, or Gen III reactors, are a class of nuclear reactors designed to succeed Generation II reactors, incorporating evolutionary improvements in design. These include improved fuel technology, higher thermal efficiency, signi ...

s, such as the EPR. It was envisaged as a 600 MW industrial prototype connected to the

grid Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Space partitioning * Regular grid, a tessellation of space with translational symmetry, typically formed from parallelograms or higher-dimensional analogs ** Grid graph, a graph structure with nodes connec ...

. A commercial series of 1500 MW SFR reactors was planned to be deployed around 2050. As of 2012, the project involved 500 people, with almost half among industrial partners. Those included

Électricité de France Électricité de France SA (; ), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational corporation, multinational electric utility company owned by the government of France. Headquartered in Paris, with €139.7 billion in sales in 2023, EDF ope ...

Areva Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

Power Systems, Comex Nucléaire, Jacobs France,

Toshiba is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...

and

Bouygues Bouygues S.A. () is a French engineering group headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Bouygues is listed on the Euronext, Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip (stock market), blue chip in the ...

Construction. In 2014 Japan agreed to cooperate in developing the emergency reactor cooling system, and in a few other areas. As of 2016, France was seeking the full involvement of Japan in ASTRID development. In November 2018 France informed Japan it will halt joint development. In August 2019 France cancelled ASTRID and sodium-breeder in general, with an official statement that “In the current energy market situation, the perspective of industrial development of fourth-generation reactors is not planned before the second half of this century. About €735 million had been spent on the project.

References

External links

The ASTRID Technological Demonstrator
Liquid metal fast reactors Nuclear power stations in France Nuclear technology in France {{nuclear-power-stub

See also

References

External links