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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.
Kazuo Minato, Kazuhiro Sawa, Toshio Koya, Takeshi Tomita, Akiyoshi Ishikawa, Charles A. Baldwin, William Alexander Gabbard, Charlie M. Malone
Nuclear Technology | Volume 131 | Number 1 | July 2000 | Pages 36-47
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Postirradiation heating tests of TRISO-coated UO2 particles at 1700 and 1800°C were performed to understand fission product release behavior at accident temperatures. The inventory measurements of the individual particles were carried out before and after the heating tests with gamma-ray spectrometry to study the behavior of the individual particles. The time-dependent release behavior of 85Kr, 110mAg, 134Cs, 137Cs, and 154Eu were obtained with on-line measurements of fission gas release and intermittent measurements of metallic fission product release during the heating tests. The inventory measurements of the individual particles revealed that fission product release behavior of the individual particles was not uniform, and large particle-to-particle variations in the release behavior of 110mAg, 134Cs, 137Cs, and 154Eu were found. X-ray microradiography and ceramography showed that the variations could not be explained by only the presence or absence of cracks in the SiC coating layer. The SiC degradation may have been related to the variations.