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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.
Milan Vujović, Miloš Vujisić
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 11 | November 2022 | Pages 1649-1665
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2070354
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several select geopolymer, polymer, and composite materials are considered as potential candidates for the inner shielding in containers used for storage and disposal of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, from the perspective of radiation effects. The suitability of the probed materials is examined through Monte Carlo simulations, which yield absorbed dose values in container inner shieldings of various compositions and dimensions. The radioactive waste considered in the simulation models contains 60Co or 137Cs and is placed inside standard 216.5-L (55-gal) drums, in either compacted or solidified form. The influence of container stacking, in either a storage or a disposal environment, on the dose in the shielding is also taken into account. The simulation results are used for calculating the dose-dependent overpressure within the container caused by the gas generated in the inner shielding through radiolysis. Two types of waste activity limits are determined for each of the researched shielding materials: one below which the overpressure decreases after the initial heat-induced jump and another that results in an overpressure that stays just below the maximum tolerable value. Dose-dependent changes of the polymer and composite shielding materials’ molecular weights are also calculated. The obtained results show that with regard to the radiation effects caused by the investigated sources, the examined materials are compatible with the proposed use as inner shielding in radioactive waste containers.