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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.
Cheol Nam, Yong-Hwan Jeong, Youn-Ho Jung
Nuclear Technology | Volume 136 | Number 2 | November 2001 | Pages 158-168
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3235
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During the last decade, the failure behavior of high-burnup fuel rods under a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) condition has been a serious concern since fuel rod failures at low enthalpy have been observed. This has resulted in the reassessment of existing licensing criteria and failure-mode study. To address the issue, a statistics-based methodology is suggested to predict failure probability of irradiated fuel rods under an RIA. Based on RIA simulation results in the literature, a failure enthalpy correlation for an irradiated fuel rod is constructed as a function of oxide thickness, fuel burnup, and pulse width. Using the failure enthalpy correlation, a new concept of "equivalent enthalpy" is introduced to reflect the effects of the three primary factors as well as peak fuel enthalpy into a single damage parameter. Moreover, the failure distribution function with equivalent enthalpy is derived, applying a two-parameter Weibull statistical model. Finally, the sensitivity analysis is carried out to estimate the effects of burnup, corrosion, peak fuel enthalpy, pulse width, and cladding materials used.