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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.
James N. Anno
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 16 | Number 4 | August 1963 | Pages 357-362
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A26545
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Transient-temperature behavior following a step change in internal heat generation has been analyzed to determine the power generation in the Battelle Shielding Facility fission plate. The fission plate is employed for shielding studies as a radiation source with a fission energy distribution. The plate is a 28-in. diam, 0.0199-in. thick uranium disk containing 3741 gm of uranium enriched to 93.14% in the uranium-235 isotope. It is plated with 0.0007 in. of nickel and clad with 0.025 in. of aluminum on each side and is in intimate contact with a 0.25-in. thick aluminum plate on one side. Ceramic spacers provide airgap insulation of the fission-aluminum plate combination from the surrounding media. Resistance thermometers were employed to observe the transient-temperature behavior following a step change in the internal heat generation in the plate for fission heating and for cooling tests. The cooling curve data were strictly exponential and rendered a decay constant of 0.0517 min−1 which was utilized, along with the physical constants of the assembly, to render a solution to the transient-heating equation and an estimated power of 25.0 ± 0.6 watts.