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Holtec hits milestones in Palisades restart, new reactor projects
Steam rises from the Palisades nuclear power plant. (Photo: Holtec International)
The restart of Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Mich., has hit a milestone with the passivation of its primary system, plant owner Holtec International announced Monday, even as a firm restart date has yet to be announced.
Passivation is a chemical process that improves corrosion resistance by making plant materials less reactive. During the process, the reactor’s primary system was brought to normal operating temperature and pressure. Holtec called this passivation phase an “essential step” in maintaining the long-term reliability of equipment.
Elmar Eidelpes, Brian M. Hom, Robert A. Hall, Harold E. Adkins, Josh J. Jarrell
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 195 | Number 3 | March 2021 | Pages 279-299
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1802161
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The uranium 235U enrichment commonly used in fuel production for U.S. light water nuclear reactors typically does not exceed 5 wt%. In contrast, many of the currently investigated advanced reactor concepts demand fuel with higher enrichments. This includes high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), characterized by a 235U enrichment of 5 to 20 wt%. The necessity of HALEU transportation in the fuel production cycle leads to new challenges caused by various technical and regulatory hurdles. Current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission–approved transportation package designs for UF6 with enrichments above 5 wt% provide relatively small payloads [≤116 kg (250 lb)]. Furthermore, in accordance with 10 CFR 71.55, package design activities for fissile material enriched above 5 wt% need to consider water infiltration in the containment as part of the criticality safety evaluations. This study presents a transportation package concept for HALEU advanced nuclear reactor fuel with a significantly higher payload of up to 376 kg (830 lb) of fissile material per package and up to 1881 kg (4149 lb) of HALEU per legal weight truck. The anticipated chemical form of the transported material is UO2 downblended from available highly enriched uranium. The concept utilizes a combination of existing transportation packaging, 18 inner canisters, and a novel basket design that includes a borated aluminum flux trap. Criticality and shielding evaluations; fundamental structural, confinement, and thermal assessments; and studies on package operations are presented. The results of this study build significant confidence in the technical feasibility of a high-capacity HALEU transportation package concept while demonstrating the concept’s potential to meet U.S. regulatory requirements.