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NN Asks: Is the U.S. ready for nuclear construction to accelerate?
Craig Stover
Yes, but . . .
The United States is better positioned today for nuclear construction than it has been in decades. Some of that comes from the experience gained at Vogtle and V.C. Summer. I was part of the team that helped start the V.C. Summer project in 2008, and at that time we were trying to build a nuclear construction workforce from scratch. We learned a lot through that effort, and many of those lessons learned have since been studied, documented, and shared.
The nuclear industry is also benefiting from the wave of investment that started growing around 2020. Over the last five or six years, there has been a serious effort across the country to get ready for new nuclear builds. The U.S. government and the private sector are investing billions of dollars in new nuclear. Much of that work is happening before widespread commercial deployment contracts are signed. This is real, and we need to prepare.
Jesson Hutchinson, Timothy Valentine
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 161 | Number 3 | March 2009 | Pages 357-362
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE161-357
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Subcritical measurements were conducted with an alpha-phase plutonium sphere using the 252Cf source-driven noise analysis method. Measurements were performed with both polyethylene and acrylic reflectors. For each reflector type, five different reflector thicknesses were investigated: 0 (bare), 1.27, 2.54, 3.81, and 7.62 cm. A certain ratio of spectral quantities that depends on the fluctuations in the fission chain multiplication process was measured for each configuration. In addition, two types of Monte Carlo calculations were employed to estimate the keff and spectral ratio values of each configuration. From the measured and computed quantities, the multiplication and uncertainty of the system can be inferred. The polyethylene measurements compared well to previous measurements conducted with the same plutonium sphere and polyethylene reflector thicknesses. The acrylic measurements provide benchmark data of an alpha-phase plutonium sphere reflected by acrylic.
