PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL FOR AN ELSY-ORIENTED TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION PROJECT (DEMO) Pre-conceptual Design Options

This report evaluates a preliminary proposal for the design of a Technology Demonstration Project (DEMO) which would be conceived in coherence with the European Lead-cooled System (ELSY/LEADER), validating lead technology and overall system behaviour. The purpose of such a DEMO is to demonstrate the viability of technology for use in a future commercial power plant, construction and operation, with the aim at proving the general strategy to use, to the largest extent. The guidelines addressing to DEMO will have to cover the whole project; in this preliminary document only the core part has been taken into account accurately, as first and most crucial step of the activity. The first phase towards DEMO conceptual design has been the specification of the issues of ELSY to be investigated/validated, the objectives to be reached, and the kind of analyses to be performed in order to achieve them at best. A set of general objectives and requirements that must be met has been first identified and then a number of core design parameters have been determined on the basis of both goals and technological constraints. A range of options has been considered and discussed: two series of coherent core parameters sets have been taken into account in reference to both a short-term (with the least programmatic risk) and medium/long-term (relying on the expected improvement of technologic constraints) schedule.