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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.
T. Takamatsu, T. Fujimoto, K. Masuda, K. Yoshikawa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 1114-1118
Technical Paper | Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1647
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion device has been manufactured as a compact neutron source. This device consists of double jacket chambers to provide sufficient water cooling, having the diameters of inner and outer chambers of, respectively, 20 cm and 30 cm. The effective water-cooling enabled the IEC device to operate at high cathode current of more than 80 mA. A target neutron yield of 1 × 107 has been achieved for cathode voltage of 80 kV and (cathode) current of 80 mA. The water jacket of a 5 cm width was designed as well to assure the sufficient reflection of 2.45 MeV D-D neutrons downward, where a thinner 1 cm thick water jacket is installed at the bottom. This non-uniformity of water jacket thickness resulted in increased neutron flux downward.