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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.
Albert G. Gu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 177 | Number 2 | February 2012 | Pages 157-175
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13363
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper introduces a combined micro and macro (CMM) parameter perturbation theory for boiling water reactor (BWR) lattice design and optimization, which involves a large number of independent design variables and a large scale of variations. With this theory, engineers are able to meet the challenges from both accuracy and speed requirements. This theory was applied to the BWR fuel assembly lattice design in AREVA. A BWR fast lattice simulator (FLS) and a BWR fuel assembly lattice optimizer (BALO) were built and assisted engineers working on the lattice design and optimization. In addition to the discussion of this theory, the BALO/FLS calculation results are used to show that this theory can meet both speed and accuracy criteria of design as well as cover the large design range. Moreover, the results also show that two major perturbation issues in BWR lattice design and optimization, i.e., the large swing of average lattice enrichment and the thermal neutron black absorber's distribution as burnable poison can be resolved with the CMM perturbation theory. Finally, it is pointed out that the macro parameter perturbation combined with the micro parameter perturbation is extremely important to the accuracy.