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Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
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.
A. V. Campise
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 7 | Number 2 | February 1960 | Pages 104-110
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE60-A29078
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The neutron balance of a reactor system is probably the most important single quantity to be obtained from an analysis of static core physics. In a heterogeneous reactor configuration, an accurate knowledge of the different reaction rates must be obtained by first studying the unit cell. The results for the unit cell are used in the homogenization of the reactor lattice so that a multigroup, multiregion reactor program may be used to investigate the reactions rates of the reactor system. A study was made of the ability of the Sn form of the neutron Transport Equation to describe accurately the thermal neutron flux distribution in a unit cell. The uncertainties introduced into the problem by spectrum hardening in heterogeneous cells were minimized by confining most of the comparison of theory with experiment to natural uranium rods in diphenyl and D2O. A slightly enriched uranium slab in a water lattice was used for comparisons of results published in reference (1). Results are evaluated on the basis of the Sn method's ability adequately to calculate the spatial variation of the thermal flux distribution when compared with experiment. Excellent agreement was obtained for the Sn calculations.