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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.
Yong-Qian Shi, Qing-Fu Zhu, He Tao
Nuclear Technology | Volume 149 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 122-127
Technical Note | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper first briefly reviews the neutron source multiplication method and then presents an experimental study that shows that the parameter measured by the neutron source multiplication method actually is a subcritical effective neutron multiplication factor ks with an external neutron source, not the effective neutron multiplication factor keff. The parameters ks and keff have been researched for a nuclear critical safety experiment assembly using a uranium solution. The parameter ks was measured by the source multiplication method, while the parameter keff was measured by the power-raising period method. The relationship between keff and ks is discussed and their effects on nuclear safety are mentioned.
