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NRC looks to leverage previous approvals for large LWRs
During this time of resurging interest in nuclear power, many conversations have centered on one fundamental problem: Electricity is needed now, but nuclear projects (in recent decades) have taken many years to get permitted and built.
In the past few years, a bevy of new strategies have been pursued to fix this problem. Workforce programs that seek to laterally transition skilled people from other industries, plans to reuse the transmission infrastructure at shuttered coal sites, efforts to restart plants like Palisades or Duane Arnold, new reactor designs that build on the legacy of research done in the early days of atomic power—all of these plans share a common throughline: leveraging work already done instead of starting over from square one to get new plants designed and built.
M. Aristova, C. A. Gentile
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 475-477
IFE Drivers and Chambers | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A8948
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An important technical and economic consideration in designing the prospective direct drive inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactor is the determination of a suitable mechanism for tritium breeding from neutrons produced in the initial reaction. A comprehensive review has been undertaken to determine the optimal breeding material, examining several candidate compounds. These include ceramic breeding pebbles as well as liquid 83Pb-17Li (Pb-Li) and (LiF)2BeF2 (FLiBe). In this study, the compounds are evaluated based on chemical and physical properties, structural requirements, feasibility, hazards, and costs of application. Preliminary results seem to indicate that, of the liquid breeding materials, FLiBe may be the more practical option, due to its mechanical feasibility and the relative projected efficiency of blanket design. Likewise, lithium metatitanate (Li2TiO3) appears to be a viable ceramic material. However, much remains to be investigated, particularly the properties of breeder and structural materials in the specific conditions of a reactor. Further work in this area will require theoretical modeling as well as practical trials, currently planned in other progenitor reactor designs. This paper will present the results of the analysis of these candidate breeder materials.
