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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.
Hiroshi Tamai, Shinichi Ishida, Gen-Ichi Kurita, Hiroshi Shirai, Katsuhiko Tsuchiya, Shinji Sakurai, Makoto Matsukawa, Akira Sakasai
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 4 | June 2004 | Pages 521-528
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A527
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A 1.5-dimensional time-dependent transport analysis has been carried out to investigate steady-state operation scenarios with a central current hole by off-axis current drive schemes consistent with a high bootstrap current fraction for the JT-60SC large superconducting tokamak. A steady-state operation scenario with HHy2 = 1.4 and N = 3.7 has been obtained at Ip = 1.5 MA, Bt = 2 T, and q95 = 5, where noninductive currents are developed during the discharge to form a current hole with beam-driven currents by tangential off-axis beams in combination with bootstrap currents by additional on-axis perpendicular beams. The bootstrap fraction increases up to ~75% of the plasma current, and the current hole region is enlarged up to ~30% of the minor radius at 35 s from the discharge initiation. The current hole is confirmed to be sustained afterward for a long duration of 60 s. The present transport simulation shows that heating equipment designed for JT-60SC is capable of forming and sustaining the current hole only by using off-axis beam-driven currents and bootstrap currents. The stability analysis shows that the beta limit with the conducting wall can be ~N = 4.5, which is substantially above the no-wall ideal magnetohydrodynamic limit.