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DOE selects first companies for nuclear launch pad
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the National Reactor Innovation Center have announced their first selections for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad: three companies developing microreactors and one developing fuel supply.
The four companies—Deployable Energy, General Matter, NuCube Energy, and Radiant Industries—were selected from the initial pool of Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program applicants, the two precursor programs to the launch pad.
Christopher C. Pain, Matthew D. Eaton, Jefferson L. M. A. Gomes, Cassiano R. E. de Oliveira, Adrian P. Umpleby, Kemal Ziver, Ron T. Ackroyd, Bryan Miles, Antony J. H. Goddard, H. van Dam, T. H. J. J. van der Hagen, D. Lathouwers
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 144 | Number 3 | July 2003 | Pages 242-257
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE03-A2357
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Previous work into the space-dependent kinetics of the conceptual nuclear fluidized bed has highlighted the sensitivity of fission power to particle movements within the bed. The work presented in this paper investigates a method of stabilizing the fission power by making it less sensitive to fuel particle movement. Steady-state neutronic calculations are performed to obtain a suitable design that is stable to radial and axial fuel particle movements in the bed. Detailed spatial/temporal simulations performed using the finite element transient criticality (FETCH) code investigate the dynamics of the new reactor design. A dual requirement of the design is that it has a moderate power output of ~300 MW(thermal).