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2024 ANS Annual Conference
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Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Latest News
Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
Sherrell R. Greene
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 2 | November 2018 | Pages 131-146
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1480213
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper builds on previous work that characterized the nature of the nuclear power plant (NPP)–electric Grid system, the concept of Grid resilience, and the potential of current U.S. NPPs to enhance the U.S. Grid, integrated Critical Infrastructure, and societal resilience. The concept of a resilient nuclear power plant (rNPP) is defined. Two rNPP Key Attributes and Six rNPP Functional Requirements are presented. A preliminary discussion of some rNPP design features that could enable an NPP to achieve the Six rNPP Functional Requirements is presented, along with a preliminary discussion of some rNPP regulatory, siting, and economic considerations. Taken as a package, the Six rNPP Functional Requirements define an NPP performance envelope that extends the societal value proposition of nuclear energy well beyond that of traditional baseload electricity generation. The paper lays the foundation for exploration of high-value rNPP applications and for future rNPP conceptual design studies.