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Front-end nuclear fuel supply cooperation: Turning allied interdependence into strategic advantage
The global nuclear revival, which is fueled by unprecedented demand for firm, affordable, dispatchable power for artificial intelligence and data center build-out, energy security imperatives, and climate commitments, has exposed a structural reality of the Western fuel cycle: No single allied nation currently possesses the full suite of front-end capabilities. From mining through conversion, enrichment, fabrication, and the emerging deconversion and metallization steps required for reactor fuels, capability is distributed across Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (collectively, the “Sapporo Five”), as well as a small group of close partners.
Takuya Yamashita, Ikken Sato, Takeshi Honda, Kenichiro Nozaki, Hiroyuki Suzuki, Marco Pellegrini, Takeshi Sakai, Shinya Mizokami
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 10 | October 2020 | Pages 1517-1537
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1704581
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Estimation and understanding of the state of the fuel debris and fission products inside the plant comprise an essential step in the decommissioning of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (1F). However, because of the plant’s high-radiation environment, direct observation of the plant interior is difficult. Therefore, in order to understand the plant’s interior conditions, comprehensive analysis and evaluation based on various measurement data from the plant, analysis of plant data during the accident progression phase, and information obtained from computer simulations for this phase are necessary. These evaluations can be used to estimate the conditions of the interior of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and the primary containment vessel (PCV). This paper addresses 1F Unit 2 as the subject to produce an estimated map of the fuel debris distribution from data obtained about the RPV and PCV based on comprehensive evaluation of various measurement data and information obtained from the accident progression analysis, which were released to the public in June 2018.