slides - Operating Experience, Session I, Cask Cranes
slides - Operating Experience, Session I, Cask Cranes
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
U.S Court of Federal Claims Senior Judge James F. Merow issued a favorable ruling on September 30, 2006 for the three former Yankee nuclear power plants in their litigation with the federal government over its failure to remove used nuclear fuel from the three New England sites. Yankee Vice- President and Chief Financial Officer Michael Thomas said, “While the Court’s decision will need to be reviewed and evaluated, the Yankee companies’ initial reaction to the monetary award is very positive.
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
This is the Nuclear Fuels Storage and Transportation Project Director's presentation on Near Term Planning for Stroage and Transportation of Used Nuclear Fuel presented to the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management on January 14, 2013 in Arlington Va.
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
A brief history of operation, decommissioning, and the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel
Presented at the NEI Used Fuel Management Conference, St. Petersburg, FL, May 7-9, 2013
This paper describes the lessons learned from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) transportation of
125 DOE-owned commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies by railroad from the West Valley Demonstration
Project to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). On July 17, 2003, DOE made
the largest single shipment of commercial SNF in the history of the United States. This was a highly visible and
political shipment that used two specially designed Type B transportation and storage casks. This paper describes
This paper provides insights into the neutronic similarities between a representative high-capacity rail-transport cask containing typical pressurized water reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel assemblies and critical reactor state-points, referred to as commercial reactor critical (CRC) state-points. Forty CRC state-points from five PWRs were analyzed, and the characteristics of CRC state-points that may be applicable for validation of burnup-credit criticality safety calculations for spent fuel transport/storage/disposal systems were identified.
A conservative methodology is presented that would allow taking credit for burnup in the criticality safety analysis of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) packages. The method is based on the assumption that the isotopic concentration in the SNF and cross sections of each isotope for which credit is taken must be supported by validation experiments. The method allows credit for the changes in the 234U, 235U, 236U, 238U, 238Pu, 239Pu, 240Pu, 241Pu, 242Pu, and 241Am concentration with burnup. No credit for fission product neutron absorbers is taken. The methodology consists of five major steps:
A flat, uniform axial burnup assumption, preferred for its computational simplicity, does not always conservatively estimate the pressurized water reactor spent-fuel-cask multiplication factors. Rather, the reactivity effect of the significantly underburned fuel ends, usually referred to as the "end effect," can be properly treated by explicit modeling of the axial burnup distribution based on limiting axial burnup profiles.
The calculation of isotopic concentrations in spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies and the subcritical multiplication factor of SNF packages are two of the essential requirements of the actinide-only burnup credit methodology. To justify the accuracy of the computed values, the code systems used to perform the calculations must be validated. Here, the techniques used for actinide-only burnup credit isotopic and criticality validation are presented and demonstrated.
Until now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) approval of criticality safety evaluations for spent fuel in transport and storage casks has been based on analyzing the fuel as though it were fresh and without burnable poisons. The well-known nuclide composition of fresh fuel has provided a straightforward and bounding approach for showing that spent fuel systems will remain subcritical under normal and accident conditions. Burnup credit refers to the approval of criticality safety evaluations that consider the decrease in fuel reactivity caused by. irradiation in the reactor.
One of the significant issues yet to be resolved for using
burnup credit ~BUC! for spent nuclear fuel ~SNF! is establishing
a set of depletion parameters that produce an adequately conservative
representation of the fuel’s isotopic inventory. Depletion
parameters ~such as local power, fuel temperature, moderator temperature,
burnable poison rod history, and soluble boron concentration!
affect the isotopic inventory of fuel that is depleted in a
pressurized water reactor ~PWR!. However, obtaining the detailed
Criticality safety analysis devoted to spent-fuel storage and transportation has to be conservative in order to be sure no accident will ever happen. In the spent-fuel storage field, the assumption of freshness has been used to achieve the conservative aspect of criticality safety procedures. Nevertheless, after being irradiated in a reactor core, the fuel elements have obviously lost part of their original reactivity. The concept of taking into account this reactivity loss in criticality safety analysis is known as burnup credit.