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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.
Tsutomu Sakurai, Akira Takahashi, Niro Ishikawa, Yoshihide Komaki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 83 | Number 1 | October 1988 | Pages 24-30
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT88-A34172
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The composition of NOx generated in the dissolution of UO2 has been described in different ways by earlier authors. Finding a way to determine the NOx composition in the dissolution included experiments concerning the reactions of NO and NO2 with 3 to 6 M HNO3. The following conclusions have been obtained for the dissolution: (a) of the NOx, NO is the direct product of the dissolution [3UO2 + 8HNO3 → 3UO2(NO3)2 + 2NO + 4H2O]; (b) part of the NO is converted quickly to NO2 by the second reaction, i.e., NO + 2HNO3→ 3NO2 + H2O (the equilibrium constant of this reaction determines the NOx composition); (c) the dissolution is therefore expressible as 3UO2 + 4(2 + x)HNO3→3UO2(NO3)2 + 2(1 — x)NO + 6xNO2 + 2(2 + x)H2O, (0 < × < 1) (some values of the × were obtained); (d) the amount of NO2 in the NOx is considerably smaller than that reported by earlier authors, e.g., 25% for 6.7 MHNO3 at 101°C; (e) UO2(NO3)2 coexisting in the solution tends to increase the NO component in the NOx.
