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NN Asks: What hurdles stand in the way of nuclear power’s global expansion?
Jake Jurewicz
Nuclear technology is mature. It provides firm power at scale with minimal externalities and has done so for decades. The core problem isn’t about the technology—it is how the plants are built. Nuclear construction has a well-documented history of cost and schedule overruns. Previous nuclear plants often spent more than twice what was first budgeted, making nuclear among the power technologies with the largest average cost overruns worldwide.
Recent projects illustrate how severe the problem can be. In South Carolina, the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion saw projected costs rise from roughly $10 billion to more than $25 billion before the project was abandoned in 2017, by which time more than $9 billion had already been spent and customers were stuck paying for a site they have yet to benefit from.
M. Wohlmuther, F. X. Gallmeier, M. Brugger, S. Roesler
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 685-688
Accelerators | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9290
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the framework of activation calculations of accelerator components with Monte Carlo methods, an unsolved problem is to take into account the spallation products of trace elements and impurities in a bulk material. Because of the low probability of spallation reactions with these elements, a large number of primary particles are necessary to obtain some information about their spallation products. A new algorithm for treating high-energy reactions has been implemented into MCNPX 2.5.0 to overcome these deficiencies. With this algorithm, spallation reactions of all constituents of a material will be performed at each high-energy interaction. This leads to the production of spallation products from all elements in a material. We will present examples of how this new methodology influences the outcome of activation calculations.
