Fuel Fabrication Capability Assessment in Support of Advanced Reactor Deployments

Technical Report · Thu Feb 17 00:00:00 EST 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/3012461· OSTI ID:3012461

Zbib, Ali A.; Yeager, Clifford J.; Painter, Chad L.; Blanchard, David L.; Nutt, William M.; Katalenich, Jeffrey A.; McNamara, Bruce K.; Grabinski, Stephen

More than 30 U.S. companies are designing a variety of advanced reactor concepts, and several companies are planning to demonstrate their reactor designs in the mid-2020s to late 2030s time frame. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a series of awards under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to accelerate the successful deployment of 10 of these reactors under three pathways. TerraPower and X-energy were awarded grants under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program to deploy their respective Natrium reactor and Xe-100 reactor designs in the next 7–10 years. These demonstrations are in addition to several parallel programs, including the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) interest in the development of microreactors, and interest of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in space nuclear power and propulsion. The National Reactor Innovation Center’s (NRIC’s) mission is to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of advanced reactors; NRIC is partnering with several reactor developers and harnessing the world-class capabilities of the U.S. National Laboratory system to deliver on its mission. Several of these reactor designs will require advanced fuel forms that are not commercially available today, including metal fuel, molten salt fuel, TRi-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) particle fuel, and uranium nitride fuel. Recognizing that there may be potential gaps in the laboratory-scale process development and pilot-scale first-of-a-kind (FOAK) production of these fuel forms leading to delivery of the FOAK cores, NRIC commissioned this study to look at the challenges that need to be overcome for successful deliveries, including the evaluation of existing facilities and the potential need for a new fuel fabrication facility.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 3012461
• Report Number(s): PNNL-31226 Rev.1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ARDP
CARFF
FMEF
HALEU
HEU
LEU
MSR
NRIC
Nuclear Fuel
Nuclear Industry
TRISO
U02
UF6
advanced reactor