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NRC approves Diablo Canyon license renewal, extension
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s application to extend the operating licenses for Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s two pressurized water reactors by another 20 years.
Thursday’s approval means Diablo Canyon-1 and -2 can now operate until November 2, 2044, and August 26, 2045, respectively, if California lawmakers agree. A 2022 state law requires the California Legislature to approve any extension of operations at Diablo Canyon that goes beyond 2030.
Tri Nguyen, Elia Merzari
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 10 | October 2023 | Pages 2634-2659
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2186200
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design of advanced nuclear reactors [Generation IV (Gen IV)] involves an array of challenging fluid-flow issues that affect its safety and performance. Given that Gen IV designs have improved passive safety features, the downcomer plays a crucial role in loss-of-power scenarios. Fluid-flow behavior in the downcomer can involve forced to mixed to natural convection, and characterizing the heat transfer for these changing regimes is a daunting challenge. The creation of a high-resolution heat transfer numerical database can potentially support the development of precise and affordable reduced-resolution heat transfer models. These models can be designed based on a multiscale hierarchy developed as part of the recently U.S. Department of Energy–funded Center of Excellence for Thermal Fluids Applications in Nuclear Energy, which can help address industrial-driven issues associated with the heat transfer behavior of advanced reactors. In this paper, the downcomer is simplified to heated parallel plates, and high Prandtl number fluid (FLiBe) is considered for all simulations. The calculations are performed for a wide range of Richardson numbers from 0 to 400 at two different FLiBe Prandtl numbers (12 and 24), which result in 40 simulated cases in total. Time-averaged and time series statistics, as well as Nusselt number correlations, are investigated to illuminate mixed convection behavior. The calculated database will be instrumental in understanding flow behavior in the downcomer. Ultimately, we aim to evaluate existing heat transfer correlations, and some modifications are proposed.