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What’s reshaping nuclear licensing and compliance today?
Mark Reidmeyer
It is the convergence of urgency, innovation, and modernization that is reshaping nuclear licensing and compliance today.
For decades, nuclear licensing operated in a relatively stable environment built around large light water reactors, predictable review cycles, and well-established regulatory pathways. Today, that model is evolving rapidly. Advanced reactors, AI-enabled tools, digital engineering platforms, grid reliability concerns, and aggressive decarbonization goals are all pushing the industry—and regulators—to move faster and think differently.
Howard F. Bauman, Paul R. Kasten
Nuclear Technology | Volume 2 | Number 4 | August 1966 | Pages 287-293
Technical Paper and Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT66-A27518
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermal- and intermediate-energy molten-salt breeder reactors appear capable of fuel doubling times less than 20 years and fuel-cycle costs under 0.4 mill/kWh. These reactors are fueled with circulating molten salts consisting of the fluorides of thorium, uranium, lithium, and beryllium. Three reactor concepts were analyzed; the first two were graphite-moderated thermal breeders. In the first of these, the fissile and fertile materials were kept separated by graphite tubes in the core; in the second, the fissile and fertile materials were included in a single salt stream. In the third concept, an intermediate-energy breeder, the core was an unmoderated salt containing both fissile and fertile materials. The reactors were optimized for minimum fuel-cycle cost and maximum annual fuel yield. The results showed that each concept was capable of a low fuel-cycle cost and a short doubling time; however, the major development problems are different for each concept.