Licensing for tritium production in a commercial light water reactor: A utility view

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2000 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:20104508

Chardos, J S; Sorensen, G C; Erickson, L W

In a December 1995 Record of Decision for the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Tritium Supply and Recycling, the US Department of Energy (DOE) decided to pursue a dual-track approach to determine the preferred option for future production of tritium for the nuclear weapons stockpile. The two options to be pursued were (a) the Accelerator Production of Tritium and (b) the use of commercial light water reactors (CLWRs). DOE committed to select one of these two options as the primary means of tritium production by the end of 1998. The other option would continue to be pursued as a backup to the primary option. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) became involved in the tritium program in early 1996, in response to an inquiry from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for an expression of interest by utilities operating nuclear power plants (NPPs). In June 1996, TVA was one of two utilities to respond to a request for proposals to irradiate lead test assemblies (LTAs) containing tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs). TVA proposed that the LTAs be placed in Watts Bar NPP Unit 1 (WBN). TVA participated with DOE (the Defense Programs Office of CLWR Tritium Production), PNNL, and Westinghouse Electric Company (Westinghouse) in the design process to ensure that the TPBARs would be compatible with safe operation of WBN. Following US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issuance of a Safety Evaluation Report (SER) (NUREG-1607), TVA submitted a license amendment request to the NRC for approval to place four LTAs, containing eight TPBARs each, in WBN during the September 1997 refueling outage. In December 1998, DOE announced the selection of the CLWR program as the primary option for tritium production and identified the TVA WBN and Sequoyah NPP (SQN) Units 1 and 2 (SQN-1 and SQN-2, respectively) reactors as the preferred locations to perform tritium production. TVA will prepare license amendment requests for the three plants (WBN, SQN-1, and SQN-2). While the TPBARs replace discreet burnable absorbers in the reactor cores, there are differences in the reactions that occur in the absorber material (lithium aluminate versus boron). At end of life, the lithium aluminate provides considerably more reactivity holddown than the standard boron-containing burnable absorbers. Therefore, it will be necessary for the TVA plant engineering and fuels staffs, working with the fuel vendors, to define the appropriate core loading (number of fresh fuel assemblies, enrichment, etc.) to maintain safe operating limits under both operating and accident conditions. It is recognized that the irradiation of TPBARs in the TVA reactors will also require additional radiological and chemistry program upgrades.

• Research Organization: TVA, Spring City, TN (US)
• OSTI ID: 20104508
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 82; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
ISOTOPE PRODUCTION
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
REACTOR LICENSING
SEQUOYAH-1 REACTOR
SEQUOYAH-2 REACTOR
TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
TRITIUM
US DOE
WATTS BAR-1 REACTOR