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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.
Richard B. Vilim, Richard W. Brock
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 123 | Number 2 | June 1996 | Pages 259-271
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE96-A24187
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The trend toward increased reliance on passive features for power reactor safety makes it important to obtain the characteristics of the reactor system from measurements on the system. A method is described for solving for the delayed neutron parameters in a liquid-metal power reactor by fitting an analytic solution of the point-kinetics equations to the flux die-away from a dropped rod in an initially critical core. The method includes treatment of those conditions found in a power reactor that depart from those in a critical assembly experiment. These include a comparatively long rod drop time and a detector signal that instead of providing an integrated count rate is a sampled data signal proportional to the instantaneous fission power. The delayed neutron parameter values calculated from a rod drop experiment in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II are in agreement with values calculated using first principles and knowledge of core material composition and nuclear cross sections.