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North American construction is back—smaller and faster—at OPG’s Darlington
“The nuclear renaissance is real here,” said Ontario Power Generation’s Subo Sinnathamby on May 8, one year to the day after OPG secured a final investment decision to build the first of four planned BWRX-300 reactors at its Darlington nuclear power plant, and shortly after the new reactor’s foundation was lifted into place. “We got our license to construct in April and our [final investment decision] in May, and we’ve been off to the races since.”
Gregory A. Johnson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 170 | Number 3 | June 2010 | Pages 416-421
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10327
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Transuranic (TRU) conversion ratio is a key cost driver of the advanced fuel cycle. The reactor capacity required to consume the national TRU inventory increases as conversion ratio increases. Achieving zero conversion ratio with metal alloy or oxide fuels is fraught with technical challenges. These difficulties can be overcome by hydriding the metal alloy fuel. In this paper, we present the novel concept of using a uranium-free hydrided metal alloy fuel to achieve zero conversion ratio. A reactor core composed of this novel fuel and that would fit in the Sodium Advanced Fast Reactor core geometry was developed; core performance and TRU consumption is estimated and presented. Concerns about the safety of uranium-free fuels are addressed. Although the Doppler effect is nonexistent in a uranium-free fast core, a substantial Doppler effect is present with the uranium-free hydrided metal alloy fuel.