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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.
Ivars Neretnieks
Nuclear Technology | Volume 72 | Number 2 | February 1986 | Pages 194-200
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT86-A33741
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a final repository for spent nuclear fuel, the waste canister may be surrounded by some backfill. For low-permeability backfills, the transport of dissolved species such as corrosive agents for radionuclides leached after canister penetration is faster by diffusion than by flow. In fissured rock the migrating species will have a large cross-section area for transport while in the bulk of the backfill, but a very small area for transport at the mouth of the fissure. A somewhat idealized physical model has been used as a basis for a mathematical model that has been solved analytically. It shows the influence of fissure widths, backfill thickness, and distance between fissures. Some calculations are performed using some geometrical configurations of interest. They show that the influence of fissure width on the transport rate is small.