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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.
Shinsuke Tashiro, Gunzo Uchiyama, Takuya Ohno, Yuki Amano, Ryoichiro Yoshida, Hithoshi Abe
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 7 | July 2022 | Pages 1205-1213
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.2018272
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A clogging behavior of a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter has been investigated for solvent fire accidents to provide valuable data for establishing a risk assessment method for reprocessing facilities in Japan. In this study, the burning rates of 30% tri-butyl phosphate (TBP)/dodecane and dodecane solvents and the differential pressure ΔP change of a high airflow–type HEPA filter applied in ventilation systems of reprocessing facilities in Japan were measured in the solvent burning. It was confirmed that the dodecane in the 30% TBP/dodecane mixed solvent burned mainly at the early stage of the burning of the mixed solvent and that the TBP burned mainly at the late stage of the burning of the mixed solvent. In addition, the burning rate of dodecane in the early stage and the rate of the TBP in the late stage were estimated, respectively. As a result, the former rate was almost the same as the burning rate of burning only the dodecane without TBP. Furthermore, the rapid increase of the ΔP of the HEPA filter was observed at the late stage of burning the mixed solvent. The increase of the release ratio of the airborne particles of unburned solvent (i.e., TBP and/or degradation products of TBP) and inorganic phosphorus (i.e., P2O5) was considered to contribute to the rapid increase. The empirical formulas for representing the relationship between the mass of the loading airborne particles onto the HEPA filter and the ΔP of the HEPA filter, except for the region of the rapid increase of the ΔP, under the mixed-solvent burning could be induced.