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NRC looks to leverage previous approvals for large LWRs
During this time of resurging interest in nuclear power, many conversations have centered on one fundamental problem: Electricity is needed now, but nuclear projects (in recent decades) have taken many years to get permitted and built.
In the past few years, a bevy of new strategies have been pursued to fix this problem. Workforce programs that seek to laterally transition skilled people from other industries, plans to reuse the transmission infrastructure at shuttered coal sites, efforts to restart plants like Palisades or Duane Arnold, new reactor designs that build on the legacy of research done in the early days of atomic power—all of these plans share a common throughline: leveraging work already done instead of starting over from square one to get new plants designed and built.
Kris Dylst, John Seghers, Frank Druyts, Johan Braet
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 215-218
Technical Paper | Waste Handling | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1798
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recycling beryllium used in a fusion reactor might be a good way to overcome problems related to the disposal of neutron irradiated beryllium. The critical issues for the recycling of used first wall beryllium are the presence of tritium and (transuranic) impurities. High temperature annealing seems to be the most promising technique for detritiation. Purification of the detritiated beryllium can be achieved by chlorination of the irradiated beryllium and the subsequent reduction of beryllium chloride to highly pure metallic beryllium. After that, the beryllium can be re-fabricated into first wall tiles via powder metallurgy which is already a mature industrial practice. This paper outlines the path to define the experimental needs for beryllium recycling and tackles problems related to the detritiation and the purification via the chlorine route.