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February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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A series of firsts delivers new Plant Vogtle units
Southern Nuclear was first when no one wanted to be.
The nuclear subsidiary of the century-old utility Southern Company, based in Atlanta, Ga., joined a pack of nuclear companies in the early 2000s—during what was then dubbed a “nuclear renaissance”—bullish on plans for new large nuclear facilities and adding thousands of new carbon-free megawatts to the grid.
In 2008, Southern Nuclear applied for a combined construction and operating license (COL), positioning the company to receive the first such license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012. Also in 2008, Southern became the first U.S. company to sign an engineering, procurement, and construction contract for a Generation III+ reactor. Southern chose Westinghouse’s AP1000 pressurized water reactor, which was certified by the NRC in December 2011.
Fast forward a dozen years—which saw dozens of setbacks and hundreds of successes—and Southern Nuclear and its stakeholders celebrated the completion of Vogtle Units 3 and 4: the first new commercial nuclear power construction project completed in the U.S. in more than 30 years.
R. K. Osborn
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 3 | Number 1 | January 1958 | Pages 29-37
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE58-A25443
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An explicit form for the function representing the probability that a neutron with velocity v′ shall be scattered into an element of volume in velocity space d3υ about v, by elastic collisions with atoms of arbitrary mass number A in a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution characterized by a temperature T, is derived. Analytical representations of this probability are presented for scattering cross sections which are either independent of relative speed or exhibit a Gaussian dependence. The scattering probability resulting from the former assumption is examined in some detail, and then employed in a calculation of the mean energy change per collision.
