PARIS, Aug 30 (Reuters) - France's CEA nuclear agency hasdropped plans to build a prototype sodium-cooled nuclearreactor, it said on Friday, after decades of research andhundreds of millions of euros in development costs.
Confirming a report in daily newspaper Le Monde, the stateagency said it would finalise research in so-called "fourthgeneration" reactors in the ASTRID (Advanced SodiumTechnological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration) project thisyear and is no longer planning to build a prototype in the shortor medium term.
"In the current energy market situation, the perspective ofindustrial development of fourth-generation reactors is notplanned before the second half of this century," the CEA said.
In November last year the CEA had already said it wasconsidering reducing ASTRID's capacity to a 100-200 megawatt(MW) research model from the commercial-size 600 MW originallyplanned.
Le Monde quoted a CEA source as saying that the project isdead and that the agency is spending no more time or money onit.
Sodium-cooled fast-breeder reactors are one of several newdesigns that could succeed the pressurised water reactors (PWR)that drive most of the world's nuclear plants. [https://tinyurl.com/y84d2hvc]
In theory, breeders could turn nuclear waste into fuel andmake France self-sufficient in energy for decades, but uraniumprices have been on a downward slope for a decade, underminingthe economic rationale for fast-breeder technology.
There are also serious safety concerns about using sodiuminstead of water as a reactor coolant.
Since sodium remains liquid at high temperatures - insteadof turning into steam - sodium reactors do not need the heavypressurised hulls of PWRs. But sodium burns on contact with airand explodes when plunged into water.
An earlier French model was scrapped in the 1980s afterencountering major technical problems.
The ASTRID project was granted a 652 million euro ($723million) budget in 2010. By the end of 2017 investment in theproject had reached 738 million euros, according to publicauditor data quoted by Le Monde.
The CEA said a revised programme would be proposed by theend of the year for research into fourth-generation reactorsbeyond 2020, in line with the government's long-term energystrategy.($1 = 0.8973 euros)(Reporting by Geert De ClercqEditing by Leigh Thomas and David Goodman)