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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.
M.Z. Youssef, Y. Watanabe, M. Abdou, M. Nakagawa, T. Mori, K. Kosako, T. Nakamura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 1299-1308
Blanket Nucleonics Experiment | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A39869
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several fusion-oriented integral experiments were performed in Phase II of the U.S./JAERI Collaborative Program on Fusion Neutronics where the geometrical configurations and source condition closely simulate the incident spectrum in fusion reactors. The main objective of the program is to estimate the uncertainties involved in predicting tritium breeding rate in Li2O and other neutronics parameters in fusion blankets that include engineering features (i.e., first wall, multiplier). In Phase II, the Li2O test assembly is placed on one end of a Li2CO3 enclosure that houses the D-T neutron source. Predicted local and integrated tritium production rates (TPR) from 6Li(T6), 7Li(T7) and natural lithium (TN) were compared to measurements in various configurations that included reference, first wall and beryllium multiplier experiments (Phase IIA) in addition to repeating these experiments with a FW/Be layer covering the interior surface of the Li2CO3 enclosure (Phase IIB). Other neutronics parameters that included source characterization by foil measurements, in-system reaction rates, and in-system spectrum measurements were also analyzed. The analyses were carried out independently by both parties using various 3-D Monte Carlo codes and 2-D discrete ordinates codes and data libraries. The results of the analyses are reported in this paper with emphasis placed on the impact of the beryllium data on the discrepancies found between predictions and measurements.