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Latest News
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.
John M. Scott, Per F. Peterson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 772-776
National Ignition Facility-Target Area | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963707
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will support multiple user groups who will use NIF's unique capability to generate intense pulses of x-ray, neutron and gamma radiation from non-ignition and ignition targets. Contamination of the final-optics debris shields by target, near-target, and remobilized first-wall debris will determine the types of experiments that can be fielded. Some of these experimental packages will require target-facing surfaces that nearly enclose the target. Due to the short stand-off distances of these surfaces, x-ray ablation inside these confined spaces will generate conditions in NIF quite similar to those envisioned for future Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) target chambers like HYLIFE. The design of these NIF experiments provides an excellent opportunity to apply the analytical target-chamber design tools the IFE research community has created, and in a synergistic way, these experiments will in turn provide a rich source of experimental data for IFE target-chamber research.