Can you point me to some operating breeding reactors? Especially in western nations? What were the reasons the few operational ones were shut down and not replaced?
The shut down ones mostly shut down because uranium minerals were found to be sufficient for the world nuclear demand for now. We really only need to go through the complexity of breeding when you have 1000 GW-scale nuclear plants or more. Today we have only about 400.
* India: FBTR (operating)and PFBR (under construction)
* China: CEFR (operating) and CDFR (under construction)
* Japan: Joyo (Monju is shut down)
* Russia: BN-600, BN-800
Shut down ones include:
* US: EBR-1, EBR-2, Fermi-1, FFTF
* France: Phénix, SuperPhénix
* UK: Dounreay, PFR
* Germany: KNK-2, SNR-300
The shut down ones mostly shut down because uranium minerals were found to be sufficient for the world nuclear demand for now. We really only need to go through the complexity of breeding when you have 1000 GW-scale nuclear plants or more. Today we have only about 400.