This was interesting and was something that both Zog and I have...

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moosey

20,112 Posts.

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22/12/19

17:12

Post #: 42092860
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Originally posted by moosey ↑

Been doing some more digging, it would seem that enriching nuclear fuel beyond 10% may be problematic wrt to transportation for fuel manufacturing, after reading some of the stuff in the two PDF's below, BTW 10% is still considered HALEU, but to get to 19.75% I believe they would have to have a co-located enrichment facility at the same site as they make the new fuels for the SMR's that require 19.75% enrichment?
GNF-A & X Energy could make both types of fuel at Wilmington where the 10% HALEU can be transported, but if they want the 19.75% enrichment for new SMR fuel then it would more than likely need another enrichment plant at Wilmington if I am reading this correctly? they could still use the 10% HALEU to enrich to 19.75% in a second plant (Wilmington?)
But the savings for this type of fuel wrt to the lifetime refueling these reactors would be of great value in the end and well worth the effort.

10% HALEU would more than like do for today"s existing reactors, so that could still happen at Paducah? but if they want the next generation fuels for the coming SMR's they will have to co-locate a second enrichment plant to the same site as the fuel rod production, that would have to mean a second enrichment site at Wilmington if GLE are going to supply some of that?
I really like that idea!

Paducah could fulfill today's needs I reckon and a second plant at Wilmington in a couple of years would look after the SMR's I believe?
Have a read of the two documents below, there is a lot of reading and it is hard to get the head around, but I do believe my thinking may be correct but feel free to tell me otherwise, I don't consider myself to be the vault of knowledge on this?

Like I said lots of reading, but they do put some figures on the value of 1Kg of HALEU, it was a nice sum!

NEI-White-Paper Increased-Enrichment-and-Fuel-Burnup-for-LWR.pdf

ESA_HALEU_report_2019.pdf

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This was interesting and was something that both Zog and I have previously discussed.
"Additionally, the design of cores using higher enriched fuel would also require increased concentrations of neutron poisons to meet core limits, and fuel will achieve higher burnup, which also reduces reactivity. The additional
poison concentrations and higher burnup are expected offset the reactivity effects of higher enrichment.

These nuclear poisons are a problem in some ways but may be beneficial in other ways?

Last edited by moosey: 22/12/19

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0 Great analysis

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