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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.
Masaki Saito, Vladimir A. Apse, Vladimir V. Artisyuk, Anatolii N. Chmelev
Nuclear Technology | Volume 133 | Number 2 | February 2001 | Pages 229-241
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3171
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Transmutation of radioactive Cs from fission products of nuclear reactors without the potentially dangerous and expensive operation of isotopic separation is addressed. Transmutation is proposed to be performed in the blanket of a fusion neutron source with the plasma performance characteristics inherent in the current research on fusion reactors. The domain of Cs transmutation is quantitatively determined with detailed neutronics analysis of hard and softened neutron spectra, the effect of first wall loading, and two reprocessing modes. One is continuous on-line reprocessing; another one deals with a multicycle option in which a substantially long irradiation period is assumed before reprocessing. Transmutation efficiency is estimated in terms of the effective lifetime of 135Cs, which is the key characteristic governing the approach to equilibrium and the fraction of power associated with cesium transmutation in a nuclear energy system as a whole. In a contrast to fast reactors and accelerator-driven systems, fusion-driven transmutation reveals time to approach equilibrium that is comparable with the lifetime of transmuter and power associated with transmutation lies well within 5% of the total power of the nuclear energy system composed of fission reactors and transmuters.