INPRO: International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles

In 2007, Belgium joined the international IAEA's International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) initiative. Belgium will contribute to the INPRO initiative through the participation to 2 collaborative projects:

• Performance of Passive Gaseous Provisions (PGAP)
• Global Architecture of Innovative Nuclear Systems incorporating thermal and fast reactors (GAINS)

These projects will start at the end of 2007 and will last approximately 2 to 3 years, until 2010.

Performance of Passive Gaseous Provisions (PGAP)

The objective of the PGAP project is starting from a benchmark, to reach an international consensus on the definition of the reliability of a Category B passive system, and on a methodology to assess this reliability. This is particularly of high importance for Gas Cooled Fast Reactors.

SCK•CEN has chosen to participate to this project, one of the most critical items of GFR, to enlarge its knowledge of sustainable Gen-IV systems and to build up a minimal expertise in GFR, and more particularly about its critical component, and to allow a more thorough self-assessment of the choice of alternative fast reactor technology: GFR or LFR.

Global Architecture for Innovative Nuclear Systems (GAINS)

The second project in the framework of INPRO where Belgium through SCK•CEN will participate is the GAINS project which deals with the different scenario studies to go from the thermal reactor dominated park to a fast reactor one.

For Belgium and SCK•CEN, it is important to incorporate in the different scenarios the specific boundaries conditions related to Belgium (having a significant accumulated stock-pile of spent fuel), the relevance of partitioning and transmutation and the possible need for dedicated systems (ADS or other) for the transmutation of historic stockpiles of spent fuel in a double strata scenario.

Within INPRO, the GAINS project is the only collaborative project USA has decided to participate and by far the most INPRO countries (Argentina, Belgium, China, France, Japan, Korea, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, USA and Italy and potentially also Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Rep., EC, Pakistan and Ukraine) will contribute too.

Website: More information on INPRO can be found on the IAEA website.

Contact person(s)

Van den Eynde Gert , Arien Baudouin , Baeten Peter