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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.
N. E. Stauff, M. J. Driscoll, B. Forget, P. Hejzlar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 170 | Number 3 | June 2010 | Pages 371-382
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Breeding blankets are of interest for a sodium fast reactor (SFR) as they allow for small cores to have positive breeding gains. However, because they breed very high-quality plutonium, core designers are not currently encouraged to employ blankets. After verifying that the ERANOS code was in good agreement with BGcore, a Monte Carlo-based depletion system, it was shown that an SFR blanket design could breed less attractive plutonium than light water reactor (LWR)-bred plutonium for making a nuclear explosive device. Minor actinide (MA) doping and moderator addition were the two options studied. This study shows that it is possible to build an SFR with a secure blanket with MA addition; at steady state MAs from approximately 1.5 LWRs are required per SFR [both rated at 1 GW(electric)].