Foundation for Nuclear Studies Hill Briefing

Framatome’s Jeff Whitt participated last week in the Foundation for Nuclear Studies Hill briefing.
Framatome’s Jeff Whitt participated last week in the Foundation for Nuclear Studies Hill briefing.
The U.S. nuclear industry just hit a major milestone in developing new and improved fuels for its current fleet of reactors. Framatome’s accident tolerant fuel (ATF) was recently installed for testing at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
The US Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) reported yesterday that coordination among the various entities involved in the development of accident-tolerant fuels (ATF) has “progressed to the point that all stakeholders now agree on the feasibility of a 2023 timeline”.
Following a planned outage, Unit 1 at the Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant near Baxley in southeastern Georgia returned to service in early March outfitted with first-of-their-kind accident tolerant fuel (ATF) test assemblies. The development marks a major milestone for the advanced fuel technology, which, beyond safety benefits, could furnish the world’s light water reactor fleet with much-needed cost efficiencies to help them stay competitive.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) recently sent a comment letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the industry’s path forward to full accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) deployment.