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NRC approves TerraPower construction permit
Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has approved TerraPower’s construction permit application for Kemmerer Unit 1, the company’s first deployment of Natrium, its flagship sodium fast reactor.
This approval is a significant milestone on three fronts. For TerraPower, it represents another step forward in demonstrating its technology. For the Department of Energy, it reflects progress (despite delays) for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). For the NRC, it is the first approval granted to a commercial reactor in nearly a decade—and the first approval of a commercial non–light water reactor in more than 40 years.
Micheal A. Smith, Richard M. Lell, Gerardo Aliberti, Zhaopeng Zhong, Florent Heidet
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 1 | October 2022 | Pages S71-S82
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2058845
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) that is being designed today is heavily reliant upon the Argonne Reactor Codes (ARC) modeling software for predicting the operational performance of the VTR. Given its usage in the VTR, a set of validation cases appropriate for the VTR must be assembled. The measurements taken in ZPPR-15, Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II), and Fast Flux Test Facility were chosen and analyzed with the ARC software as part of creating the necessary validation basis. The results of the ARC software on the measured data are discussed here, and they demonstrate the accuracy of the ARC software on fast spectrum reactors.
