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NN Asks: What hurdles stand in the way of nuclear power’s global expansion?
Jake Jurewicz
Nuclear technology is mature. It provides firm power at scale with minimal externalities and has done so for decades. The core problem isn’t about the technology—it is how the plants are built. Nuclear construction has a well-documented history of cost and schedule overruns. Previous nuclear plants often spent more than twice what was first budgeted, making nuclear among the power technologies with the largest average cost overruns worldwide.
Recent projects illustrate how severe the problem can be. In South Carolina, the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion saw projected costs rise from roughly $10 billion to more than $25 billion before the project was abandoned in 2017, by which time more than $9 billion had already been spent and customers were stuck paying for a site they have yet to benefit from.
K. Hashizume et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 553-556
Technical Paper | Materials Interactions | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1876
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Characteristics of the tritium diffusion coefficient DT in V-4Cr-4Ti alloy, including a bending in the Arrhenius plot of DT, are examined. Based on a trap model, the possible trap sources and their binding energies for tritium in the alloy are evaluated using the experimental data of DT in pure V, which are measured with a tritium tracer method, and the literature data of protium diffusion in V-Ti and V-Cr alloys. The result of the evaluation suggests the presence of two trap sources in the alloy. The first would be attributed to a trap at each substitutional alloying atom which is likely to be Ti. The binding energy EB of 0.08 eV gives the best fit to the observed value of DT above 300 K. The bending in the Arrhenius plot below 300 K is caused by a second trap site with a higher EB, and a lower concentration than those of each alloying atom. The trap is probably formed by the alloying atoms presence to neighboring Ti atoms. The contribution of Cr atom to the trap effect seems to be rather small in this alloy.