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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.
John C. Lee, Sin Tao Hsue
Nuclear Technology | Volume 76 | Number 2 | February 1987 | Pages 203-208
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A33874
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Based on a simplified solution of the balance equations for concentration of uranium and plutonium isotopes and a set of two-group microscopic cross sections, isotopic ratios, 235U/U, Pu/U, and 239Pu/235U, are calculated as a function of fuel burnup for pressurized water reactor spent fuel. The two-group cross sections for 235U, 238U, 239Pu, and water are collapsed into equivalent thermal-group constants, with the fast-to-thermal flux ratio obtained through a two-group criticality consideration. For this purpose, parasitic neutron captures are represented through a simple semiempirical relationship. The calculational model, incorporated as the BURN code, yields isotopic ratios that compare favorably with three major data sets from the ISTLIB data bank.