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Center for Used Fuel Research: Building confidence in storage and transport
Used nuclear fuel storage and transportation have reached a critical juncture.
Dozens of utilities need reliable data on how used nuclear fuel performs in dry storage casks and canisters to extend regulatory licenses at sites across the United States. Likewise, the Department of Energy expects to take ownership of the used nuclear fuel—termed “spent nuclear fuel” in the laws and regulations governing its stewardship—and transfer it to one or more federal staging facilities for management and disposition.
Meanwhile, dozens of reactor companies are testing prototypes of advanced reactors and advanced reactor fuels. Eventually, regulators and industry must also verify the safety and security of storage methods for these advanced fuel types.
To help address these challenges, the DOE established the Center for Used Fuel Research (CUFR) in January 2026 for work related to the long-term storage and transport of used nuclear fuel.
Sylvian Kahane, Yair Ben-Dov (Birenbaum), Raymond Moreh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 1 | January 2023 | Pages 115-126
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2102847
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monoenergetic gamma beams (Δ ~ 10 eV) based on thermal neutron capture, in a nuclear reactor, using the V(n,γ) and Fe(n,γ) reactions were utilized for generating fast neutron sources from lead and thallium, respectively, via the 207Pb(γ,n) and 205Tl(γ,n) reactions. It so happens that one of the incident gamma lines of the V source, Eγ = 7163 keV, photoexcites by chance a resonance level in 207Pb, which emits neutrons at an energy of 423 keV. In a similar manner the incident gamma line at Eγ = 7646 keV of the Fe(n,γ) source photoexcites by chance a resonance level in the 205Tl isotope, which emits neutrons at an energy of 99 keV. The cross sections for the neutron emission process were measured and found to be σ(γ,n) = 35 ± 6 mb and 107 ± 17 mb, respectively, with intensities of the order of 104 n/s.
