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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
S. Esnouf, A. Dannoux-Papin, E. Bossé, V. Roux-Serret, C. Chapuzet, F. Cochin, J. Blancher
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 2 | February 2022 | Pages 347-356
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1896927
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and Orano have developed a modeling tool named the Simulation Tool Of RAdiolysis Gas Emission (STORAGE) for assessing gas generation of intermediate-level waste. The first version of this model was designed to estimate gas (more specifically hydrogen) generation by radiolysis of organic materials contained in waste packages.
To verify the validity of the model, a series of measurements was performed on U, Pu–contaminated solid waste issued from the Orano plutonium laboratories at the MELOX facility. Twenty-one drums containing technological waste (gloves, bags, filters, metallic parts, etc.) packaged inside polyvinyl chloride sleeves were set up and hydrogen production was measured over a period of more than 1 year. Several levels of contamination and organic content were studied.
STORAGE calculations are conservative and most of the time in good agreement with experimental measurements with the uncertainties. As expected, the simplest cases (organic waste or filtering media) are well described by the model. The data are obviously more widely dispersed when the waste is composed of a mixture of organic materials and metal. Nevertheless, an understanding of the waste (package composition) allows a fairly precise description and ultimately a satisfactory estimation of the hydrogen production rate.