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Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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.
C. Coquelet-Pascal, M. Tiphine, G. Krivtchik, D. Freynet, C. Cany, R. Eschbach, C. Chabert
Nuclear Technology | Volume 192 | Number 2 | November 2015 | Pages 91-110
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-20
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear systems, composed of reactors with varied fuel and cycle facilities (enrichment plant, fabrication plant, reprocessing plant, etc.), are complex and in constant evolution. Since 1985, the CEA has been developing the simulation software COSI to study different trajectories of nuclear fleet evolution and provide technical elements to decision makers. The principle of COSI, including the typical composition of the data set, is exposed. To evaluate as accurately as possible the isotopic compositions of materials, several physical models are implemented in COSI. The main ones, the evolution calculation and the equivalence models, are described in detail. An exercise of validation of COSI carried out on the French pressurized water reactor (PWR) historical nuclear fleet until 2010 is also presented, as well as a methodology for propagation of input uncertainties on COSI results.
To illustrate the possibilities of COSI, the results of different scenarios studied in the framework of the French Act for Waste Management are discussed. The objective of these scenarios is to evaluate the feasibility of sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) deployment to renew the French PWR fleet on different timescales and to analyze the costs and the benefits of different options of minor actinide (MA) partitioning and transmutation. The impacts of SFR deployment on cycle facilities such as the fabrication plant, the spent fuel storage, and the reprocessing plant are minimized. The SFR deployment appears to be feasible with regard to fissile material availability, with an adaptation of fuel cooling time before reprocessing or of SFR breeding gain.
Minor actinide transmutation in homogeneous mode MA diluted in core) and transmutation in heterogeneous mode (in MA-bearing blankets) are compared not only according to their impacts on cycle facilities and on ultimate waste but also according to the reduction of their inventories. The increases in fresh fuel thermal power and spent fuel decay heat due to the addition of MAs in fuels are quantified. The cases of transmutation of all MAs (americium, neptunium, and curium) and of americium only are distinguished. Alternative scenarios are explored to overcome the challenges associated with each option: reduction of the maximal MA content in fresh SFR fuel in the case of homogeneous transmutation and reduction of interim MA storage in the case of heterogeneous transmutation.