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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.
Lane S. Paschal, C. L. Bentley,† Michael E. Dunn,‡ S. Goluoglu, R. E. Pevey, H. L. Dodds
Nuclear Technology | Volume 119 | Number 3 | September 1997 | Pages 295-305
Technical Paper | Nuclear Criticality Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35405
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A criticality safety study of diffusion cascade coolers in a shutdown state is presented. The coolers represent six typical cascade coolers at a gaseous diffusion plant with accumulated deposits of UO2F2. The study involves keff calculations for the coolers with various distributions of UO2F2, which are assumed as part of several hypothetical accident scenarios. The results show that at least two independent failures must occur in order to have a criticality. Additionally, the distributions chosen represent the upper bounds for keff. Individual results show that the keff values for the cascade coolers designed for 80 and 97% enriched UF6 with deposit amounts <2.409 and 2.185 kg, respectively, will not exceed 0.9 for the accident scenarios modeled. All other coolers require shell-side flooding with H2O in order to cause a criticality, which is possible only if two or more independent failures occur.