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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.
Jess Greenborg
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 2 | October 1989 | Pages 457-460
Technical Paper | TMI-2: Health Physics and Environmental Release / Nuclfar Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27737
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Reactor coolant circulation following the Three Mile Island Unit 2 core destruction distributed fuel within the reactor coolant system and into the connected auxiliary systems. The collection sites generally were the low points, the horizontal surfaces, and, to a lesser extent, the vertical surfaces. The affected auxiliary systems included the reactor coolant drain tank, the letdown system, the makeup and purification system, the liquid waste systems, and the reactor coolant pump seal return lines. Steam flow to the steam generators could only move small particles (<1 mm). Smoke formation during core degradation accounted for much of the film formation in the upper elevations of the coolant system. Restart of the reactor coolant pumps accounts for the larger particles found in the steam generators.