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Front-end nuclear fuel supply cooperation: Turning allied interdependence into strategic advantage
The global nuclear revival, which is fueled by unprecedented demand for firm, affordable, dispatchable power for artificial intelligence and data center build-out, energy security imperatives, and climate commitments, has exposed a structural reality of the Western fuel cycle: No single allied nation currently possesses the full suite of front-end capabilities. From mining through conversion, enrichment, fabrication, and the emerging deconversion and metallization steps required for reactor fuels, capability is distributed across Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (collectively, the “Sapporo Five”), as well as a small group of close partners.
Bela Toth, Klaus Mueller, Jon Birchley, Hozumi Wada, Claude Jamond, Klaus Trambauer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 157 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 132-142
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3808
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the results of pretest calculations of the Phebus fission product release experiment FPT3. The test scenario with the appropriate initial and boundary conditions was provided by the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire. For the analyses, three severe accident codes were used: ATHLET-CD, ICARE2, and MELCOR. The calculations were focused on the main phenomena occurring in the bundle, such as the thermal behavior, the hydrogen production mainly due to cladding oxidation, the massive degradation of spent fuel and the release of fission products and control rod and structure materials. Using the predefined boundary and initial conditions, relatively small deviations between the code results were obtained, which demonstrates that the dominant processes occurring during a severe accident in the core of pressurized water reactors can be adequately simulated. By applying these codes to a large spectrum of integral tests as well as to plant analyses, one will obtain reliable results on the fuel bundle behavior. However, the spread in the calculated oxidized boron carbide masses indicates that modeling efforts are still necessary in all the codes in this respect.