Development status on high-temperature gas-cooled reactor system at JAEA, Japan

Ogawa, Masuro; Hino, Ryutaro; Kunitomi, Kazuhiko ; Inagaki, Yoshiyuki

To enable nuclear energy application to a wide range of heat process industries, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has continued extensive efforts for the development of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) and nuclear hydrogen production technologies in the framework of the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) project. The 30 MWt HTTR, currently the world's largest HTGR reactor, is developed and operated by JAEA on the site of the JAEA's Oarai Research & Development Center. The HTTR has successfully derived the high temperature (950 C) heat output, completed the 50-day full-power heat production test, and carried out the nuclear passive safety demonstration. The HTTR performance records fulfill some of the important technological requirements for the Generation-IV HTGR, also known as VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor). In addition, development of hydrogen production by a thermochemical IS process carried out at JAEA leads the world's R&D progress on nuclear hydrogen. In the presentation, the necessity of the new energy source of hydrogen and its production using HTGR is briefly explained as well as world-wide status of its development study, and the overview of the HTTR project is given with emphasis on the hydrogen production system development, followed by proposal of possible international cooperation in this field.