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NSI argues for direct disposal as quickest path to nuclear scaling
The Nuclear Scaling Initiative, a collaborative effort launched in 2024 to spur new nuclear energy development, announced a new campaign promoting the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel as the safest, most secure, and least expensive pathway for managing U.S. nuclear waste.
Marc Rosselet, Rakesh Chawla, Tony Williams
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 135 | Number 1 | May 2000 | Pages 33-47
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE99-33
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two of the methods that can be used for the measurement of the subcriticality of a multiplying system are the inverse kinetic (IK) and the pulsed neutron source (PNS) techniques. These methods depend considerably on correction factors and/or kinetic parameters, which usually need to be calculated using the same neutronic codes as those being validated via the experiments. The use of epithermal detectors to reduce the dependence of area-ratio PNS measurements on calculated correction factors was reported previously. In the current work, for the first time, epithermal detectors have been used for IK measurements. As in the case of the PNS experiments, these were carried out in core/reflector configurations with large spatial effects, systematic comparisons with thermal measurements clearly bringing out the considerably lower sensitivity of the epithermal IK results to calculational corrections. A new two-group point-kinetic model has currently been developed as an extension of the usual theoretical basis (employing a single energy group) for analyzing kinetic experiments. This has been essential for justifying the analysis methodology employed for the epithermal IK measurements.