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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 $2.7 billion in funding.
Mahmoud Z. Youssef, Insoo Jun
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 887-892
ITER Nuclear Design | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A39806
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the initial design of TIBER-II inboard (I/B) shield, multilayers of tungsten shield and coolant were deployed with a total thickness of 48 cm. It was thought during the design process to replace W by PCA. The motivations are: (1) accumulated activation level in the I/B shield at shutdown is larger in the W-shield in comparison to the PCA-shield, and (2) concerns regarding cost/fabrication. This design change required an I/B shield thickness of ∼58 cm to reach the same performance level of the 48 cm W-shield. In this paper a detailed comparison between the two types of shield is given regarding the accumulated radioactivity, biological hazard potential (BHP), and afterheat levels at shutdown and various times thereafter. In addition, a substantial part of the present work is devoted to studying the impact of the present neutron cross-section uncertainties in the prediction of the radiation damage parameters in the S/C magnet. In this regard, an extensive cross-section sensitivity/uncertainty analysis was performed to assess the required increase in the I/B shield thickness in both cases to account for these uncertainties. It was shown that the economic penalty of such an increase is 13–17 M$ in the W-shield case as opposed to 10–14 M$ in the case of the PCA-shield.