AREVA NP yesterday said four lead test assemblies featuring chromia additions to the fuel pellets and a chromium coating to the fuel rod cladding will be loaded into Vogtle unit 2 in spring 2019. The company will begin manufacturing the chromia-doped fuel pellets at its facility in Richland, Washington, later this year. John Williams, nuclear…
Following innovations brought about the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Fuels Campaign, the nuclear industry is pushing to advance the program’s schedule and continue developing accident tolerant nuclear fuels. DOE, in partnership with industry groups, National Labs and research universities, plans to demonstrate prototype advanced technology fuel (ATF) in U.S. commercial light water reactors by…
The nuclear energy industry has long supported and implemented improvements in the nuclear fuel used in its reactor fleet. These improvements have traditionally been incremental. Six months after the March 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan, the U.S. Senate gave the Department of Energy renewed funding for research into a project that already had been underway…
Following the damage to the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011, the U.S. Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to initiate a program to investigate accident-tolerant fuel for nuclear reactors. The goal of this initiative is to find a fuel rod design that is more tolerant to accident conditions than the fuel…
The safe, reliable, and economic operation of the nation’s nuclear power reactor fleet has always been a top priority for the United States’ nuclear industry. Continual improvement of technology, including advanced materials and nuclear fuels, remains central to the industry’s success. Decades of research combined with continual operation have produced steady advancements in technology and…