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Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
Alvin Radkowsky
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 90 | Number 4 | August 1985 | Pages 381-387
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE85-A18485
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the seed-blanket core concept, the major portion of the core power is typically produced in subcritical regions known as “blankets.” The small supercritical regions that drive the blankets are known as “seeds.” The concept lends itself to geometry control in which moving the seeds varies the leakage of neutrons into fertile material, thus avoiding the loss of neutrons to parasitic control devices. As a burner, the seed-blanket concept has significant advantages in the reduction of initial fuel loading and improvement in resource utilization. As a breeder, the seed-blanket concept has further advantages in making it feasible to obtain negative void and moderator reactivity coefficients. A summary is presented of recent studies of the application of the seed-blanket core concept with both heavy water and light water moderation.