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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.
Min-Jie Chuang, Shih-Jen Wang, Sheng-Yuan Fann, Show-Chyuan Chiang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 167 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 247-253
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A8961
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Generic severe accident guidelines (SAGs) of a boiling water reactor are developed based on the Mark-I containment system. There are many intrinsic features of Mark-III containment including the following: the drywell does not form a part of the primary containment boundary, it has large containment free volume, the drywell is enclosed by the primary containment, and the drywell and the primary containment are located parallel on the same elevation.Because of the features of the Mark-III system and its benefit to the containment flooding strategy, it is found that the associated containment flooding strategy can be simplified. The seven legs in the containment flooding strategy are reduced to four legs. The five rows of check logic are reduced to three. Simplifying the SAG charts whenever possible increases the probability of a successful outcome. The tedious and time-consuming work of identifying the reactor pressure vessel status can be removed. It saves time for decision making in emergency conditions.