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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.
John T. Mihalczo
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 47 | Number 3 | March 1972 | Pages 290-301
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE72-A22415
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of dynamic measurements has been performed with a multiplying assembly in which a rotating beryllium reflector (worth 4.8 dollars in reactivity) moved past an unreflected core surface ∼60 times/sec at a speed of 264 m/sec. A pulse of 14.1-MeV neutrons was injected into the assembly each time the rotating reflector attained a position for which the reactivity of the assembly was maximum. The time distribution of neutrons after the injection of the pulse was measured in the core and adjacent to a 10.16- × 10.16- × 3.81-cm polyethylene scatterer which provided a pulse of thermal leakage neutrons. The maximum prompt-neutron multiplication of the assembly, which was reflected with iron on all sides but one and contained 58.6 kg of highly enriched uranium metal at delayed criticality, was varied from 75 to 285 by fuel loading changes. This assembly with a maximum prompt-neutron multiplication of 285 produced fast-neutron pulses with a width at half-maximum of 3.9 μsec, with a peak-to-minimum ratio of 12,400 and with 80% of the power in the pulse. These pulses, when thermalized by the scatterer, were broadened to a width at half-maximum of 20.9 μsec with a peak-to-minimum power ratio of 1590. The number of thermal neutrons leaking from the outer surface of the scatterer was 3.3 × 10−5 n/(cm2 fission).