Fusion Fission Hybrid Reactor for Energy (FFHR-E): a potential way to make use of natural uranium without separation of plutonium

A preliminary conceptual design of a Fusion Fission Hybrid Reactor for Energy (FFHR-E) is presented. The Fusion core parameters are similar to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). An alloy of natural uranium and Zirconium(U-10Zr) is adopted in the fission blanket, which is cooled by light water . The average M (Energy Multiplication) and TBR (Tritium Breeding Ratio) can be maintained at 10 and 1.15 respectively, over tens of years continuous irradiation. If simple reprocessing without separation of plutonium from uranium is adopted every few years, FFHR-E can achieve good neutronics performance and can improve uranium utilization over other fusion fission hybrid schemes with lower nuclear proliferation risk. (author)