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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.
P. R. McClure, M. T. Leonard, A. Razani
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 114 | Number 2 | June 1993 | Pages 102-111
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24021
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computational model is described for fission product release from molten pools of uranium-aluminum (U-Al) metal. Liquid-metal pools may form during severe accidents in U-Al-fueled reactors if multiple core assemblies melt and relocate to the bottom of the reactor vessel. At present, data for the release of fission products from intact U-Al fuel are sparse, and no data are available for the release of fission products from U-Al in the form of molten pools. This investigation postulates three phenomena that govern fission product release from such a system: (a) Rayleigh cell convection in the molten pool; (b) nucleation of volatile radionuclide species with concomitant bubble dynamics; and (c) diffusion from the pool surface. Selected sensitivity analyses have been performed to study the dependence of model predictions on uncertain input parameters and thus to characterize critical needs for experimental data. The results of the sensitivity analysis indicate that parameters that characterize the nucleation rate of volatile species in the pool have the greatest effect on the calculated rate of fission product release.