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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.
P. A. Pizzica, P. B. Abramson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 64 | Number 2 | October 1977 | Pages 465-479
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27383
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The computer code EPIC models fuel and coolant motion that results from internal fuel pin pressure (from fission gas or fuel vapor) and/or from the generation of sodium vapor pressures in the coolant channel subsequent to pin failure in a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor. The modeling includes the ejection of molten fuel from the pin into a coolant channel with any amount of voiding through a clad rip which may be of any length or which may expand with time. One-dimensional Eulerian hydrodynamics is used to model both the motion of fuel and fission gas inside a molten fuel cavity and the mixture of two-phase sodium and fission gas in the channel. Motion of molten fuel particles in the coolant channel is tracked with a particle-in-cell technique.