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Fuel loading process begins at Palisades
The Palisades nuclear power plant has drawn closer to restart, as plant staff began the process of loading fuel into the reactor vessel on Sunday morning.
The commencement of fuel loading places the Covert, Mich., facility in Mode 6—or the refueling stage—under the plant’s technical specifications, plant owner and operator Holtec International said in a news release. The Palisades reactor core consists of 204 fuel assemblies that include new fuel and partially used fuel from the plant’s most recent operating cycles. According to Holtec, the fuel loading is being conducted in accordance with plant procedures and technical specifications.
Jesson Hutchinson, John Bounds, Theresa Cutler, Derek Dinwiddie, Joetta Goda, Travis Grove, David Hayes, George McKenzie, Alexander McSpaden, James Miller, William Myers, Ernesto Andres Ordonez Ferrer, Rene Sanchez, Travis Smith, Katrina Stults, Nicholas Thompson, Jessie Walker
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 195 | Number 1 | November 2021 | Pages S80-S98
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.1918938
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The work presented in this paper focuses on the first 10 years (2011–2020) of radiation test object (RTO) operations at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center. RTOs are subcritical configurations of special nuclear material that are built by hand. These configurations are utilized for benchmark experiments, detector testing/characterization, and training. An overview of the types of measurements used in RTO operations is given as well as a history of RTO operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1944–2011.