METHOD OF THE SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL USING IN THE HOT WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM Russian patent published in 2018 - IPC F24D11/00 G21C3/30 G21C1/14 

FIELD: heating.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the hot water supply (HWS) system development. Distinctive feature of the present invention from the currently used second type HWS systems is that instead of expensive traditional sources in the form of coal, diesel fuel, natural gas, etc., heat it considers the practical possibility of using for water heating, of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) heat generation, such as spent fuel assemblies of WWER-1000, RBMK-1000 nuclear reactors and others, which, after 3 years of use in the reactor, are placed into the holding pool for subsequent disposal procedure. In the proposed method, the centralized HWS system operation capacity directly (linearly) depends on the installed in the heating medium heater housing SFAs number. So, for example, for the 500 kW HWS system capacity sufficient for consumers in the urban area or the urban-type settlement, etc., 330 SFAs are required at the overloads rate with replacement of the least energetic third of the total SFAs 1 time in 3 months for SFAs with a holding of ~1 month. HWS system can be organized during the new CHP (central heating point) room construction or during the old (existing) CHP upgrading, which allows to install the new heating medium heater housing and has all the HWS system devices and a fairly convenient access. According to the Rules of NP 061-05, the FA placement pitch, as well as their mutual arrangement, should be chosen so, that the effective neutron multiplication factor during the NF storage and transportation does not exceed 0.95. In the proposed method, the SFA heater housing is a kind of intermediate holing pool, after which the SFAs significantly lose their radioactivity and energy release, from where after a full cycle of operation in the HWS system they can be transported for recycling.

EFFECT: result of the proposed heat generation method application for the organization of new and modernization (replacement) of old HWS systems, is elimination of the traditional fuels use and there are no huge toxic emissions, accompanied by large amounts of heat, into the environment; economic effect of the CHP construction and the old HWS systems modernization can not be overestimated – there is no need to buy millions of tons of coal, millions of cubic meters of gas, et cetera; the social effect of hundreds of highly skilled jobs creation is also great.

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