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This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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.
Gabriel Kooreman, Farzad Rahnema
Nuclear Technology | Volume 192 | Number 3 | December 2015 | Pages 264-277
Technical Paper | Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-150
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The hybrid Diffusion-Transport Homogenization (DTH) method has been improved by replacing the assembly-level fixed-source calculation step with a fixed number of whole-core transport sweeps following each homogenization step. Like the unmodified DTH method, the Enhanced hybrid Diffusion-Transport Homogenization (EDTH) method adds an “auxiliary cross-section” term to the right side of the transport equation in order to maintain consistency with the heterogeneous equation. As an improvement to the DTH method, the on-the-fly rehomogenization step of the EDTH method utilizes a fixed number of full-core transport sweeps in lieu of assembly-level fixed-source heterogeneous transport calculations. The EDTH method has been tested in one-dimensional reactor core benchmark problems typical of a boiling water reactor core, a gas-cooled thermal reactor [High Temperature Test Reactor (HTTR)] core, and a pressurized water reactor core with mixed-oxide fuel. The method has been shown to reproduce the heterogeneous transport flux profile with 0 to 46 pcm eigenvalue error and 0.1% to 1.8% mean relative flux error with a speedup factor of 1.4 to 4.5 times faster than the DTH method. This represents a speedup of 3.0 to 12.5 times compared to fine-mesh transport.