Some research and development of thorium fuel cycle in Russia

There has recently been increasing interest in implementation of thorium into nuclear power. Among the new areas of that interest research in the field of nuclear fuel resources, safety improvement of nuclear reactors and their ecological acceptability should be mentioned. Many specialists consider the proliferation resistance to be the main advantage of thorium fuel cycle. In particular, this advantage leads to some proposals to use thorium-plutonium-based reactor fuel for plutonium utilization. This paper presents an overview of investigation, which are under way at the State Scientific Center - Institute of Physics and Power Engineering in Obninsk, Russia. (author)