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New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
W. S. Yang, T. A. Taiwo, H. Khalil
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 116 | Number 1 | January 1994 | Pages 42-54
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE94-A21480
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two techniques for solving the mathematical adjoint equations of an interface current nodal method are described. These techniques are the “similarity transformation ”procedure and a direct solution scheme. A theoretical basis is provided for the similarity transformation procedure originally proposed by Lawrence. It is shown that the matrices associated with the mathematical and physical adjoint equations are similar to each other for the flat transverse leakage approximation but not for the quadratic leakage approximation. It is also shown that a good approximate solution of the mathematical adjoint for the quadratic transverse leakage approximation is obtained by applying the similarity transformation for the flat transverse leakage approximation to the physical adjoint solution. The direct solution scheme, which was developed as an alternative to the similarity transformation procedure, yields the correct mathematical adjoint solution for both flat and quadratic transverse leakage approximations. In this scheme, adjoint nodal equations are cast in a form very similar to that of the forward equations by employing a linear transformation of the adjoint partial currents. This enables the use of the forward solution algorithm with only minor modifications for solving the mathematical adjoint equations. By using the direct solution scheme as a reference method, it is shown that while the results computed with the similarity transformation procedure are approximate, they are sufficiently accurate for calculations of global and local reactivity changes resulting from coolant voiding in a liquid-metal reactor.