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Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
Masaaki Mori, Mitsuru Kawamura, Akio Yamamoto
Nuclear Technology | Volume 117 | Number 2 | February 1997 | Pages 171-183
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35323
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Results are presented of a conceptual design study of a transuranium (TRU) fuel assembly consisting of only plutonium and minor actinide (MA) oxides for transmutation of MAs in a pressurized water reactor (PWR). The average plutonium content of the TRU transmutation fuel assembly in this study is 38 wt% Putot, and the average MA content is 62 wt%. The fuel rod arrangement and the plutonium content are optimized to suppress the internal power peaking in the fuel assembly. Core characteristics and TRU inventory change are evaluated for an 870-MW(electric) PWR core loaded heterogeneously with a few TRU transmutation fuel assemblies. The maximum loading of the TRU transmutation fuel is limited to nine assemblies to maintain a negative moderator temperature coefficient at the beginning of cycle, while satisfying a cycle length of 15.2 GWd/tonne U. By loading nine TRU transmutation fuel assemblies, the total MA inventory in the core decreases by —65 kg/cycle, which is approximately equivalent to that produced from three UO2 reactors. The heterogeneous loading of a few fuel assemblies with highly concentrated TRU in a PWR is found to be feasible for the effective transmutation of MAs while maintaining reactor safety.