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CLEAN SMART bill reintroduced in Senate
Senators Ben Ray Luján (D., N.M.) and Tim Scott (R., S.C.) have reintroduced legislation aimed at leveraging the best available science and technology at U.S. national laboratories to support the cleanup of legacy nuclear waste.
The Combining Laboratory Expertise to Accelerate Novel Solutions for Minimizing Accumulated Radioactive Toxins (CLEAN SMART) Act, introduced on February 11, would authorize up to $58 million annually to develop, demonstrate, and deploy innovative technologies, targeting reduced costs and safer, faster remediation of sites from the Manhattan Project and Cold War.
W. Bennett Lewis
Nuclear Technology | Volume 2 | Number 2 | April 1966 | Pages 171-181
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT66-A27498
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fuel may be designed for fission gas containment within the fuel clad or for venting, also to survive possible ruptures of the clad. Fission gas behavior varies widely with the UO2 starting material and, like the baking of bread, with its irradiation history of time and temperature. Below 1000° C, most gas remains trapped; between 1000 and 1800° C, most gas becomes trapped at some time in small closed pores. Expansion of the pores causes swelling. Escape from the pores is by cracking or by radiation-induced reabsorption. Fuel rods are commonly designed with a plenum to collect gas, but the high density of pores and plasticity of the oxide delays or prevents much of the gas from reaching the plenum. For irraditions up to 12 000 MWd/t, satisfactory designs have been achieved without a plenum. Above 1800° C, most gas escapes, but the process of escape is not well established and requires consideration in each case by the design engineer. Available knowledge most relevant to design is briefly reviewed and illustrated in photographs and graphs.