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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.
Jean Bergeron, Michel Darrouzet, Jean-Michel Gomit, Richard Lenain, Jean-Louis Nigon, Loïck Martin-Deidier
Nuclear Technology | Volume 80 | Number 2 | February 1988 | Pages 269-281
Technical Paper | Advanced Light Water Reactor / Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT88-A34051
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Undermoderated plutonium lattices in pressurized water reactors (PWRs) offer the prospect of very significant uranium savings as well as less degradation of the plutonium isotopic quality. There are, indeed, some uncertainties associated with such designs and, in 1984, an extensive program was launched to reduce these uncertainties. For the neutronic reactor physics research, the program included: (a) adaptation of codes—in particular, the cell code APOLLO and its neutronic data library; (b) an extensive experimental program (the ERASME, ICARE, and MORGANE experiments) to reduce the uncertainties in the different neutronic parameters; and (c) studies of important and specific future PWR problems. This program will allow us to qualify the neutronic codes for the undermoderated lattices in a very large range of moderator ratios and to validate future PWR designs.