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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.
Jaeseok Heo, Kyung Doo Kim, Byoung Jae Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 2 | November 2018 | Pages 162-171
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1471908
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper deals with numerical challenges associated with simulating thermal-hydraulic phenomena in nuclear reactors with one-dimensional system analysis codes. The main focus of this research is directed toward assessment of the pressure gradient in vertically stratified flow, particularly the separate pressure drop effects for gas and liquid phases along the control cell. The pressure drop term in momentum conservation currently being developed based on the assumption of gas and liquid combined pressure drop was redefined such that two different pressures were imposed for gas and liquid separately. The verification of the proposed momentum equation for a vertically stratified flow was completed through simulations of the liquid velocity in a U-shaped manometer. Sensitivity analysis was also performed by increasing liquid mass in the pipe leading to different positions of the liquid-vapor interface from the bottom of each manometer pipe when the flow oscillation is stopped; i.e., the interfaces are not only cell boundaries but also various positions between cell edges. As a result, improved simulation results were obtained using the modified equations as it was indicated that the oscillation of fluid decays over time while the original solution for the large pipe does not converge to zero due to a mainly incorrect pressure drop term.