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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Kazuya Ohgama, Taira Hazama, Hiroki Katagiri, Atsushi Takegoshi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1197-1214
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2197660
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For evaluating control rod (CR) interaction, CR worth values with and without the insertion of interaction CRs were measured in six CR interaction patterns by the continuous period method and the compensation method in the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju. The measured CR worth was evaluated in detail by conducting corrections, such as the thermal contraction of CR drive shafts, and compared with calculations to examine the reliability. The calculation-to-experiment values (C/Es) of examined CR worths with and without the interaction were 0.96 to 0.98 ± 0.03. The values of the measured CR interactions were obtained from those examined CR worth measurements as a change in target CR worth by the insertion of interaction CRs: 5.0 ± 0.6% to 10.1 ± 0.1%. The C/Es of the interaction in those cases were 0.78 to 0.93 within 5% to 27% uncertainty. Through this study, the consistency and reliability of the measurements and the calculations of the CR interaction were confirmed, and the measurements were judged useful.