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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.
Nasir M. Mirza, Sikander M. Mirza, N. Ahmad
Nuclear Technology | Volume 96 | Number 3 | December 1991 | Pages 237-247
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT91-A34586
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computer code using the multigroup diffusion theory based LEOPARD and ODMUG programs has been developed to calculate the activity in the coolant leaving the core of a pool-type research reactor. Using this code, the dose rates at various locations along the coolant path with varying coolant flow rate and reactor power perturbations are determined. A flow rate decrease from 1000 to 145 m3/h is considered. The results indicate that a flow rate decrease leads to an increase in the coolant outlet temperature, which affects the neutron group constants and hence the group fluxes. The activity in the coolant leaving the core increases with flow rate decrease. However, at the inlet of the holdup tank, the total dose rate first increases, then passes through a maximum at ∼500 m3/h, and finally decreases with flow rate decrease. The activity at the outlet of the holdup tank is mainly due to 24Na and 56Mn, and it increases by ∼2% when the flow rate decreases from 1000 to 145 m3/h. In an accidental power rise at constant flow rate, the activity in the coolant increases, and the dose rates at all the points along the coolant path show a slight nonlinear rise as the reactor power density increases.