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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.
A. Komori, T. Morisaki, T. Mutoh, S. Sakakibara, Y. Takeiri, R. Kumazawa, S. Kubo, K. Ida, S. Morita, K. Narihara, T. Shimozuma, K. Tanaka, K. Y. Watanabe, H. Yamada, M. Yoshinuma, T. Akiyama, N. Ashikawa, M. Emoto, H. Funaba, M. Goto, T. Ido, K. Ikeda, S. Inagaki, M. Isobe, H. Igami, K. Itoh, O. Kaneko, K. Kawahata, T. Kobuchi, S. Masuzaki, K. Matsuoka, T. Minami, J. Miyazawa, S. Muto, Y. Nagayama, Y. Nakamura, H. Nakanishi, Y. Narushima, K. Nishimura, M. Nishiura, A. Nishizawa, N. Noda, S. Ohdachi, Y. Oka, M. Osakabe, N. Ohyabu, T. Ozaki, B. J. Peterson, A. Sagara, K. Saito, R. Sakamoto, K. Sato, M. Sato, T. Seki, M. Shoji, S. Sudo, N. Tamura, K. Toi, T. Tokuzawa, K. Tsumori, T. Uda, T. Watari, I. Yamada, M. Yokoyama, Y. Yoshimura, O. Motojima, LHD Experimental Group, C. D. Beidler, T. Fujita, A. Isayama, Y. Sakamoto, H. Takenaga, P. Goncharov, K. Ishii, M. Sakamoto, S. Murakami, T. Notake, N. Takeuchi, S. Okajima, M. Sasao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 136-145
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1229
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Remarkable progress to access the reactor-relevant regime has been made in a recent experiment in the Large Helical Device. Optimizing the rotational transform, the average beta value of 4.3%, which is the highest record among helical devices, was achieved. The high-performance plasma with a fusion triple product up to ~2.2 × 1019 m-3keVs was sustained for >7 s by repetitive hydrogen pellet injection. With regard to steady-state operation, which is one of the key issues to realize a fusion reactor, discharges for >30 min were successfully sustained by ion cyclotron range of frequency heating with the aid of the magnetic axis swing technique to reduce the heat load to the plasma-facing component. In the discharge, the total input energy to the plasma reached 1.3 GJ, which also established a new record.