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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.
Alan V. Jones
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 105 | Number 2 | June 1990 | Pages 105-122
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE90-A23741
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the more severe scenarios for a single subassembly accident in a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor is the formation of a bottled-up pool of fuel and steel in the assembly and its subsequent lateral discharge into a neighbor through a breach in the can wall. Most of the calculations and experiments to investigate this scenario have assumed that the discharge is single phase. Recent experimental evidence from SCARABEE suggests that the discharge is more likely to be two phase. A series of SIMMER calculations has been performed to examine the major features of a two-phase fuel discharge into a rod bundle. Flashing is found to reduce the mass flux of the discharge; the vapor so generated then accelerates the liquid in the discharge, resulting in higher melt velocities and generally deeper penetration of the discharge into the bundle before plugging occurs as compared with the singlephase case.