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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.
Carl A. Beard, John J. Buksa, Michael W. Cappiello, J. Wiley Davidson, Jay S. Elson, John R. Ireland, Robert A. Krakowski, Burt J. Krohn, William C. Sailor, Joseph L. Sapir
Nuclear Technology | Volume 111 | Number 1 | July 1995 | Pages 122-132
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35151
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual target and blanket design for an accelerator transmutation of waste system capable of transmuting the high-level waste stream from 2.5 light water reactors is described. Typically, four such targetblanket designs would be served by a single linear accelerator. The target consists of rows of solid tungsten rod bundles, cooled by heavy water and surrounded by a lead annulus. The annular blanket, which surrounds the target, consists of a set of actinide-oxide-slurrybearing tubes, each 3 m long, surrounded by heavy water moderator. Heat is removed from the slurry tubes by passing the slurry through an external heat exchanger. Long-lived fission products are burned in regions that are separate from the actinides. Using the Monte Carlo codes LAHET and MCNP, a conceptual design for a beam current of 62.5 mA/target of 1.6-GeV protons has been developed. Preliminary engineering analyses on key system components have been performed. A preliminary layout of the concept and the associated primary-heat transport subsystems was developed, demonstrating a multiple-containment-boundary design philosophy.