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The busyness of the nuclear fuel supply chain
Ken Petersenpresident@ans.org
With all that is happening in the industry these days, the nuclear fuel supply chain is still a hot topic. The Russian assault in Ukraine continues to upend the “where” and “how” of attaining nuclear fuel—and it has also motivated U.S. legislators to act.
Two years into the Russian war with Ukraine, things are different. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, authorizing $700 million in funding to support production of high-assay low-enriched uranium in the United States. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy this January issued a $500 million request for proposals to stimulate new HALEU production. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 includes $2.7 billion in funding for new uranium enrichment production. This funding was diverted from the Civil Nuclear Credits program and will only be released if there is a ban on importing Russian uranium into the United States—which could happen by the time this column is published, as legislation that bans Russian uranium has passed the House as of this writing and is headed for the Senate. Also being considered is legislation that would sanction Russian uranium. Alternatively, the Biden-Harris administration may choose to ban Russian uranium without legislation in order to obtain access to the $2.7 billion in funding.
Phillip M. Gorman, Jasmina L. Vujic, Ehud Greenspan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 191 | Number 3 | September 2015 | Pages 282-294
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-106
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study searches for the optimal fuel assembly design for the RBWR-Th core, which is a reduced-moderation boiling water reactor that is fuel-self-sustaining. Except for the initial fuel loading, it is charged with only fertile fuel and discharges only fission products, recycling all actinides. The RBWR-Th is a variant of the RBWR-AC core proposed by Hitachi, which arranges its fuel in a hexagonal tight lattice, has a high outlet void fraction, axially segregates seed and blanket regions, and fits within the advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) pressure vessel. The RBWR-Th shares these characteristics but replaces depleted uranium (DU) with thoria as the primary fertile fuel, eliminates the internal blanket while elongating the seed region, and eliminates absorbers from the axial reflectors.
The sensitivity of important RBWR-Th core performance parameters to change in each one of a dozen design variables was established. These sensitivities provide useful insight and guidance to search for the optimal core design. The design variables of the sensitivity studies include the length of the seed and blanket zones, fuel rod diameter, lattice pitch, number of pins per assembly, concentration distribution of the recycled transfertile (transuranium + transthorium) isotopes in the seed, amount of DU in the seed makeup, coolant mass flow rate, and simulated depletion cycle length. The performance of the RBWR-Th core was found to be highly sensitive to the pitch-to-diameter ratio and to modeling assumptions. Using the conservative modeling assumptions, it was not possible to get the full ABWR power level without exceeding the pressure drop constraint.