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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
E. S. Bettis, Roy C. Robertson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 8 | Number 2 | February 1970 | Pages 190-207
Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT70-A28625
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual design has been made of a single-fluid 1000 MW(e) Molten-Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) power station based on the capabilities of present technology. The reactor vessel is ∼22ft in diameter × 20 ft high and is fabricated of Hastelloy-N with graphite as the moderator and reflector. The fuel is 233U carried in a LiF-BeF2-ThF4 mixture which is molten above 930°F. Thorium is converted to 233U in excess of fissile burnup so that bred material is a plant product. The estimated fuel yield is 3.3% per year. The estimated construction cost of the station is comparable to PWR total construction costs. The power production cost, including fuel-cycle and graphite replacement costs, with private utility financing, is estimated to be 0.5 to 1 mill/kWh less than that for present-day light-water reactors, largely due to the low fuel-cycle cost and high plant thermal efficiency. After engineering development of the fuel purification processes and large-scale components, a practical plant similar to the one described here appears to be feasible.