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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.
Tatsuhiko Uda, Yoshihiro Ozawa, Hajime Iba
Nuclear Technology | Volume 79 | Number 3 | December 1987 | Pages 328-337
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A34022
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Melt refining as a means of uranium decontamination of metallic wastes by electroslag refining was examined. Electroslag refining was selected because it is easy to scale up to the necessary industrial levels. Various thicknesses of iron and aluminum cylinders with uranium concentrations close to actual metallic wastes were melted by adding effective fluxes for decontamination. Thin-walled iron and aluminum cylinders with a fill ratio (electrode/mold cross-section ratio) of 0.05 could be melted, and the energy efficiency obtained was 16 to 25%. The ingot uranium concentration of the iron obtained was 0.01 to 0.015 ppm, which was close to the contamination level of the as-received specimen, while for aluminum it was 3 to 5 ppm, which was a few times higher than the as-received specimen contamination level of ∼0.9ppm. To melt a thin aluminum cylinder in a steady state, with this fill ratio of 0.05, instantaneous electrode driving response control was desired. Electroslag refining gave better decontamination and energy economization results than by a resistance furnace.