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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.
Milan P. Pesic
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 145 | Number 2 | October 2003 | Pages 225-233
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE03-A2378
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The RB reactor was designed as a natural-uranium, heavy water, nonreflected critical assembly in the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1958. From 1962 until 2002, numerous critical experiments were carried out with low-enriched uranium and high-enriched uranium fuel elements of tubular shape, known as the Russian TVR-S fuel assembly type, placed in various heavy water square lattices within the RB cylindrical aluminum tank. Some of these well-documented experiments were selected, described, evaluated, and accepted for inclusion in the "International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments," contributing to the preservation of a rather small number of heavy water benchmark critical experiments.