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Front-end nuclear fuel supply cooperation: Turning allied interdependence into strategic advantage
The global nuclear revival, which is fueled by unprecedented demand for firm, affordable, dispatchable power for artificial intelligence and data center build-out, energy security imperatives, and climate commitments, has exposed a structural reality of the Western fuel cycle: No single allied nation currently possesses the full suite of front-end capabilities. From mining through conversion, enrichment, fabrication, and the emerging deconversion and metallization steps required for reactor fuels, capability is distributed across Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (collectively, the “Sapporo Five”), as well as a small group of close partners.
W. D. Burch, E. D. Arnold, A. Chetham-Strode
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 17 | Number 3 | November 1963 | Pages 438-442
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A17395
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Gram quantities of many of the transuranium elements through californium-252 will be produced for research purposes in a production program centered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Plutonium-242 produced in the Savannah River production reactors will be transmuted to various higher actinide isotopes in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (thermal flux—3 × 1015 neutrons/ cm2-sec) and recovered in the adjoining Transuranium Processing Plant. Calculations which optimized the production scheme are presented. The intermediate goal of the program, production of one gram of Cf252, should be accomplished by 1968.