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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Four million nuclear jobs by 2050: Who will do them?
Industry leaders from around the globe met this month to discuss the talent development that will be necessary for the long-term success of the nuclear industry.
The International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management and Human Resources Development, hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, was held in Vienna earlier this month. Discussed there was the agency’s forecast for nuclear capacity to more than double—or hopefully triple—by 2050 and the requirement of more than four million professionals to support the industry.
Harry A. Morewitz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 83 | Number 2 | November 1988 | Pages 117-133
Technical Paper | Critical Review | doi.org/10.13182/NT88-A34155
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several very low probability light water reactor (LWR) accidents can potentially generate sufficient pressure to challenge the reactor containment integrity. A properly designed filtered vented containment system (FVCS) will prevent containment failure from overpressure and at the same time release only some low-risk fission product gases, which do not contaminate the ground. The existing and proposed FVCSs and other filter systems that could perform the same function are reviewed. Dry filters (fibrous mats, gravel beds, and sand beds), wet scrubbers (water pools, submerged gravel beds, washed fibrous mats, and submerged venturi), and combinations of different types of these filters have been proposed or used as FVCSs. The combination of two different filter types in series is particularly effective if they have substantially different aerosol penetration versus size characteristics. When cost/benefit analyses are considered, it is unclear in many cases whether FVCSs are cost-effective or actually reduce overall risk. At present, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not require FVCSs on commercial plants that it licenses. However, some U.S. Department of Energy reactor facilities are equipped with FVCSs and several U.S. utilities have proposed the installation of FVCSs at boiling water reactors (BWRs). They have not been required in Japan, Korea, India, Brazil, Taiwan, Argentina, or Switzerland. In contrast, many European countries believe that cost/benefit analyses have large uncertainties and cannot be used with confidence. They have opted for FVCSs to avoid the possibility of land contamination, to reduce the planned evacuation radius, and to provide an additional option for severe accident management. Although the first European FVCS installation was a large, expensive gravel-bed filter shared by two Swedish BWRs, the trend is toward the installation of small, lower cost FVCSs: sand beds or stainless steel fiber filters at French and German pressurized water reactors and multistage filters, consisting of a submerged venturi scrubber followed by a demister/filter, at German BWRs and Swedish LWRs.