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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Spent fuel transfer project completed at INL
Work crews at Idaho National Laboratory have transferred 40 spent nuclear fuel canisters into long-term storage vaults, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has reported.
F. Franceschini (Westinghouse), G. Grasso (ENEA), P. Ferroni (Westinghouse)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 137-142
A companion paper at this conference (Ref. 1) describes the Westinghouse LFR, a Generation IV, ultra-compact, highly simplified, passively safe, scalable reactor plant with economics, safety, and scalability as the key elements informing its design. Traditionally, engineering decisions have made the plant more or less safe with an inverse relationship between cost and safety. The LFR breaks this paradigm with design choices aiming at a safer plant while improving economics. The fuel selection is a case in point, as elucidated by this study which illustrates the potential of various fuels to meet various core design objectives and fuel cost metrics. In particular, it is shown that uranium nitride (UN) is the favorite fuel option for the LFR. Metal fuel (U-10Zr) is a suitable alternative, especially for the startup core given the more significant experience in the U.S. which would likely accelerate its qualification relative to UN. This study shows that UN is superior to uranium silicide (U3Si2) with a comfortable margin in the breakeven cost for 15N enrichment. All advanced fuel candidates have significantly superior fuel cycle cost (FCC) performance relative to UO2 and are particularly suitable options for extending the fuel cycle length.