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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.
Lambertus de Kock
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 1 | January 1989 | Pages 89-101
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A25331
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The Joint European Torus (JET) was initially built with metallic walls (Nicrofer 7612LC) and four graphite limiters. Gradually more and more graphite protection was added, and it now covers 50% of the wall. The inboard wall was covered with graphite tiles early in JET's operation to protect the wall from damage, and two toroidal belt limiters have been added to increase JET's power-handling capacity. Carbonization has been used as an additional tool to achieve certain benefits and has been developed at the Tokamak Experiment for Technically Oriented Research (TEXTOR) as a method to simulate, for a short time, an all-carbon machine and as a means to control density and impurity production. The benefits of the extensive use of graphite for protection and limiters and of the deliberate application of thin carbon layers are reviewed. Attention is given to the changes in the material under plasma exposure and the damage due to the plasma contact and the machine operation under those conditions. The role of the parameters of the scrape-off layer in the explanation and prediction of the plasma/wall interaction is emphasized.