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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.
Edward T. Dugan, Nils J. Diaz, Edward E. Carroll, Jr., H. M. Forehand
Nuclear Technology | Volume 69 | Number 2 | May 1985 | Pages 134-153
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A33625
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The development of a sound scientific data base that includes key information in the areas of neutronics, thermophysical properties, and materials for cyclic gaseous core reactors has been the objective of a lengthy theoretical/experimental research program at the University of Florida. The most recently completed phase of this program includes theoretical neutronics modeling and experimental verification. Static and dynamic neutronic experiments were conducted on the plasma core assembly at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to measure selected fundamental nuclear parameters in a gaseous core critical assembly in which a significant fraction (∼20%) of the fissioning took place in gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) fuel; the balance of the fissions occurred in a ring of conventional solid driver fuel rods surrounding the central gaseous core region. Measured parameters included neutron multiplication factors, neutron flux spatial and spectral distributions, reactor decay constants and reactivity worths of both the gaseous UF6 and the solid driver fuel rods for various critical and subcritical configurations. Measured parameters were then compared with theoretically predicted values to determine the adequacy of various analytical neutronics schemes. Theoretical predictions obtained from the various computational schemes for key neutronic parameters were, in general, in good agreement with one another and also with experiment.