ML22230A214
| ML22230A214 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/07/1978 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Tran-M780607 | |
| Download: ML22230A214 (1) | |
Text
BRIEFING BY REPRESENTATIVES OF DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY ON RESEARCH REACTORS (Open to Public Attenda~ce)
June 7, 1978 Pages 1 -
44 Prepared by:
C.H. Brown Office of the Secretary
DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on
- Su Ne. 7 1 t'f1J in the Commission's offices at 1717 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.
The meeting was open to public attendance and observation.
This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, or edited, and it ri,ay contain inaccuracies.
The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposes.
As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the matters discussed.
Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determinations or beliefs.
No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of or addressed to any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BRIEFING BY REPRESENTATIVES OF DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABdRATORY ON RESE~RCH. REACTORS (Open to Public Attendance) 1 Commissioners' Conference Room Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D. c.
Wednesday, June 7, 1978 The Commission met, pursuant to notice at 9:40 a.m.,
Joseph Hendrie, Chairman, presiding.
PRESENT:
Chairman Hendrie Commissioner Gilirisky ALSO PRESENT:
R. Lewis* (ANL)
R. Nack (DOE)
D. Hoyle (State)
W. Williamson (ACDA)
J. Hoyle_
L. Gossick
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P R O C E E D I N G S CHAIRMAN HE~DRIE:
If we c6uld come to order.
Commissioner Kennedy, I'm afraid isn'.t going to make.it and Cominissioner Bradford will' be in, :'_iri.a bit.. Why don't we go
- ahead.
Th'e subj'ect this morning is a. briefing. hy ~epresen:...
tatives of DOE and Argonne National Laboratory on Research Reactors, and in particular on the development program aimed at reducing the n~eded le~el of enrictiment. of fu~l:for research reactors.
MR. LEWIS:
I'm Dick Lewis from Argonne*National Laboratory.
Chairman Hendrie, Commissi,oner Gilinsky, I. have taken the libert:y of inviting two other gentlem.en, Mr. Dixon Hoyle from Department of State and Mr. Richard Williamson from Arms Control Disarmament Agency.
They have been instrumental, particularly in policy portions of the development of this program, and I thought it might be useful for them to be here.
CHAIRMAN. HENDRIE:
We are very glad they-::could come.
MR. LEWIS: If you have in front of you the briefing documents that I prepared, and I can direct your attention to the table of contents, let.me just quickly go over what we have here.
TheEe.is more~d~t~il than I will try to handle
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verbaily here, but basically I would like to start with
.review of the g6als of the program,.a few items on the research test reactor de~ign considera~ions basically that feed in to the program ground rules, then a dis*cussion of what determines the acceptability of reduced~nrichrnent fuel in research reactors.
From.that, develop di~cussion 6n our current enrichment reductiori strategy.
Th~n under Item 5,
- the program its elf, I want. to.talk about the current organization and structure of the program.
The reaction that we have had to it, both here in the United States and abroad, then the status of the program.
Item 6 and 7, I will just brush over very lightly and they review the current state of the art.in research reactor fuel technology and the prospects :for improve.ment of that technology.
And then I want to spend just a couple of minutes talking about NRC actions that would help us in this program.
So to begin with the goals, this program is a part of the Non-Proliferation policy effort within the U.S. Gov~rnment.
In this particular* case the principal goal of the program is to improve the proliferation resistance of fuels used in research and test reactors.
The particular concern is with highly enriched fuel during its fabrication, transport and storage prior to substantial burn up.
It is felt that there is a potential for
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diversion of the material, particularly in those activities.
Now generally *this program is i'ntended to provide a technical m~ans f6r reducing the enrichment of the fuel substantially below 90 to:93 percent enric~mett, both in U.S.
and foreign -reacto+s.
The long-term <;roal is* t'o reduce the enrichment*below 20 percent or at l(;;!ast, to a mi'nimum.
enrichment.
Recognizing that there :will probc;1.bly always be a few very high power research reactors for which reduced enrichments will not be feasible.
Now, going to Item 2, starting on page 2, let me briefly touch on those aspects~-cif research reactor desigri that can strain one's options* in looking at reduc;::ed enrichments.
First of all the main obje~tive of good research reactor design.is maximum flui for a given cost.
B~cau~e:
cost corolates. very:_:*closely with power level in the reactor, you are generally talking about trying to maximumize flux to power ratio.
That is done by minimizing core volume.for a given power.
That is s0rt of the key item for research reactors.
You want to _have small cores which lead you, of cours, to maximizing volumetric,pbwer,,density.*
Now,in that situation where you have high volumetric power densities the limiting factor in the design is the temperature of the coolant at the surface of the fuel element, at the fuel plate surface, and the factors that in turn determin that maximum temperature relative to say boiling, usually you'ar
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,5 talking about a factor relative to boiling.
The factors
. that determine that temperature are the heat*flux, th~t.is the power per unit_ of surface area and how fast the coolant is flowing past the surface whi?h determines boundary :~ayer, thickness and therefore,dT. (Delta T)
- across the bou~q.a,ry layer.*
So generally, the higher power of reactor xou are talking about or higher power'density you.need to increase the heat transfer ~urface area per unit volume of the reactor and flow faster.
So that is why for 'higher power reactors you typically see.thin plate, thin type designs with high flow rates.
Now, the key performance parameters in a research test ieactor from the user's point of view are the~fast flex in the core and the thermal flex in the reflectors and in the core flex traps.
Generally thermal flex in the core or in the fuel is not a very important parameter, and as it tu~ns out, the incore fast flux and the excore ~eflector flux trap therrnalflexes are determined principally by the. power.:density.
So you~:come back to the power density again.
So much from the user's point of view, but from the physists point of view the problem, of course, also is to provid sufficient reactivity to overcome burn-up losses, operating losses in the temperature coefficient, xenon, samarium, the reactivity involved in the experiments in order to provide a certain amount of control.
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Now, you have got a few ways to adjust reactivity and one, of course, is the core size, but here we want to.*
minimize size, the*. mode:r;-ator* to U-235 ratio,. U-235 loading in*the core, the reflector type and size that you pick.
Generally.reac:tivity can be increased by increasing the*core size, going to a more optimum ord.er to U-235 ratio, increasing the.U'-'.235 loading.or using better reflectors or moderators.
Now, burn-up.losses are rori~hly in propotion to the fractional loss of U-235 per megawatt day.
You are talking about maybe L 25 grams per megawatt day of U-235 burn-out in the core.
The reactivity loss is rorighly proportional to the fraction, that is, of the total U~235 loading~
So yciu can extend core life by increasing th~ total U-235 loading in the core.
But this is limited by *.,_:--;*:just;:putting *+/-n::more*:u-235 is limited you don't want to get excessive.*reactiyi ty from a safety point of view and also, you are limited by the fact that the fuel volume available is limited.
And after providing for moderator and cladding, you can only do a certain amount by putting more U-235 in there, especially when you need a thin-type design.
Lastly, of course, one has to be sure and maintain in any variations, the negative power coefficients and temperature coefficients which for aluminum water plate type reactors, principally come from the under-moderated design.
You are running on the low side of the water to a U-235 ratio
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and you want to maintain that.
For lower enrichment designs, of cours~, doppler becomes a factor, and f~t burn-up of poison situation such.as in TRIGA~;. :xou can get some substantial negative.temperature coefficient through the spectral-shifts accompanying t'emperature changes.
A:1.1 right, those briefly are :.the main factors in the design.
Now, with reg~rd to acceptability of reduced enrichment of fuel,. I would like to say a few things here, starting on page 4.
Res~arc~/t~st reaciois ~11 ov~r th~ world, including the United States are under intense cost pressure and they have to keep cost down. and are trying, at the same time, to maximize flux le~els.
This* is every operator you talk to.
I think, in that connection it has to be recognized at the outset that the use of lower enrichment fuels causes inherently poor f lux~.per-uni t-power performance and higher cost relative to the use of higher enrichment fuels~
This is particuiarly true for higher power reactors.
The reasons for that are that there is ia somewhat lower reactivity per gram of U-235 at lower enrichments, patricularly if you get below about say 15 percent enrichment.
Secondly, and very important, is that simply putting in U~238 displaces core volume which you can't,therefore, use for other~things such a~ clad.or~h~~t~transfer surface.
- Now, the reduced enrichment re.actor design studies
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that we are engaged in are aimed at,minimi:z:ing the performance and c6st *penalfies~
In* most cas~s~ I.~hink ihai ~oceptable t
red{i~ed en~ichment co~p,romise*s *can: b:e found, but it has.to
- be recognized f.hat in, a],l cases highly enriched fuel would, still PI;O_vide pe'tter performance~*,*one examp,le of the bind that you. a're in t;her'e {~'that. we hav-e.* under developme_ntthighe'1:
.*uranium density fuel t;~es *:fo~ research re.actors which we say will make, it feasible to *use
- 1ower enr.icihmen.ts in reac'tors ~
But it is* tr:µe that one ca_n turn thi:it a.round and say, well, fine we can use*the higher* uranium.density fuels, but at highly enriched uranium arid get yet better performance.
That is a sticky i~em.
Well, gettirig back to the acceptability of reduced enrichment fuels, if. you simply lower the enrichment in current de~igns it really has a catastrophic effect.* The reactiv'ity, of course, immediately goes down and 'that drops core* life of a given core way.down or if you compensate by increasing the core size, your power density is. down and therefore flux performance is down and you are.faced with having to raise reactor power, a very costly item.*
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Could you say s:omethihg about the popul~ti~n of research reactors?
In other words, there must be a relatively small number of h.igher*;power research reactors which are utilized to a great degree and asserts considerable pressure to perform and io on, and I would
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guess a larger population of smaller reactors which are probably not used this intensively for.whfch,these consider-
,ations :might be less. relevant.*
MR. LEWIS:
Iri fact, I will get to. that exact point, but ~o answer your.question ~irectly there are in the world i
on the ord~r, Idon't know, 90 or so research reactors.
Of those, perhaps 20 are high pqwer, high perfo~mance, and ano~her 30 or so --
40 1 are 6f intermediate power,. 5 to.J50 megawattsoand the rest are lower power, a megawatt or two and below.
It definitely is t~ue that :the low power ones can go to 20 percent now.
It. is really the intermediates that -
, well, _ the high power it is very difficult.
It is really the intermediates where a cas~-by-case situation has to be looked at.
All right, so I'm just saying here that simple reduction enrichment in current designs is basically a catastrophic*_ situation for any research reactor" and_,_that:.,
needs to be avoided.
So the criterion that we have adopted in the program that_ we consider practical from an acceptability SEan~p6int for reduced enrichments is the following:
Use less than 20 percent enrichment fuel, or if that is not practical minimize the enrichment in a situation.
Look at it case~by-case.
Secondly, as a basic criterion there should be no significant reactor performance reduction of flux per unit
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- existiµg reactor~**
Now some reduction will probably be necessary, but no sigri'ificant reduction compared to the existing'h,ighly-eniiched reactor design.
- Now,for new reactors it*i~ less clear, but we have beeri taking ~s-*a working criteria that relative to high-enriched fuel designs typical.ly used. fqr that reactor at this time, at the same power.that they should get apprciximately the same performance..
Thirdly, there should be minimum fuel cycle cost*
increases relative to current highly enriched fuel. There are going to be increases, but I hope not overwhelming.
Conversion to reduced enrichmerit fuel should raise a minimum of new safety and licensing issues, and this is particularly rel~vant to existing reactors..
Finally, for existing reactors there should be no requirement for.reactor or facility modifications.
In particula, no need to increase the power substantially because that really gets tnto a very costly operation.
So those* are the criterion that we have used.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
What does that mean, no facility modification?
MR. LEWIS:
Basically it means they should not have to raise their power levels substantially in order to reach the same or essentially the same flux performance, which means
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25 11 from attechnical point.of view that the core size* needs to remain.the.. same' since you have the power. d,ensi ty..
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An~nteresting problem, in order I
to maintain the powe:t:'. density.* *in these conditions., you
. actually. have to,slightly nqmirially ho\\d the same, but
. actually** slightly ~nc;;:rease the U-235. cf~risity. for unit volume**
. of core, and what yo~ are doing: is t~kir1g ouf a little of the inert material. in the fuei alloy and finding ways t6 replace it wi.th.uranium *which -your.:*.unan+/-um:.Jhas.not got a
- lot of 238*, in it.
MR. LEWIS:
Exactly, you are stealing my punch line.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Oh, sorry about.that.
MR. LEWIS:
That is exactly right, though, and that is an interesting problem *and as it turns out,. just to jump ahead a little.bit the reason you can do something with-th~t problem in the *short run is because m()st reactors do not use the current state of the art with regard to uranium density, but for those who do use the current state.of fhe art we have to go to higher uranium densities and that is what the deyelopment program is large'1:y::.a*11 about.
. Ail right, so what is -:;:::i.gging on to Item 4, Enrich-ment Reduction Strategy:
starting with those criterion then, what can be done?
Well, if you go down the list of things you want to maintain, maintain reactor performahce, flux per unit power, that requires that the reduced enrichment core must
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This implies t6 the first.order that the U-235 density in. the reduced enrichment core must be the same as' or somewhat more than the U-235 density in the highly enriche:!d core.
Seco~dly, maintaining fuel cycle cost reqriires that the burn-up capability for fuel element in the reduced enrichment ease must.be the same or greater than that in the highiy enriched case and the cost of fabrication must be the same or less in the reduced enrichment case.
That second one is probably not going to be met.
The first one can be met though.
Now, the first *of these requirements, that is burn-up capability again implies you need the same U-235 loading in the fuel element.
Now the extent to which new safety and l'icensing issues are raised in any redesign are minimized by minimizing reactor design changes, particularly in the area of ~afety parameters,.. reactivity coefficient, safety margins and the physical barriers to fission product release.
This implies avoiding changes,.to among other things, core modera,tor to fuel ratio, heat transfer area~*per unit power and cladding materials.
Generally we would like to limit chinges to just changing the fuel element and maybe increasing the flow rate.
Facility modifications can be avoided if the reactor
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Now, *these factors suggest an.enrichment reductions strategy that -is*.based on the working criterion tnat. is. ne*cessar to maintain the u...:235 load_ing per _fuel elem~rit at least a's large.in the reduced eririchmeni d~sign as in the current highly enriched desigh.
- It is true, as you point out~ that reactivity
- . or cost considerations may dictate somewhat. highe1; U-235 Ioacf-ings per fuel element in the lower enriched designs.
Now, *U-235
- loading can be maintained by increasing the uranium derisi ty in the fuel in proportion to the dec.rease in the enrichment, and/or.by increasing the *useable fuel meat volume per* fuel element.. This is the practical working criterion that we are using.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What is fuel meat?.
MR. LEWIS:
If you think of a fuel plat~,* a typi6al research. reactor has a cladding and then there is a region inside.which is usually a mixture of some d3orm of. uranium and ;~L_umi~~rrf:: and that is called the fuel meat.
It is thcrili.ght of-iri the sandwich>analogy, the clad* is bread.
We have looked at a lot of these research reactor designs and at fu~l capabilities and we feel that increased uranium density sufficient to permit enrichment reduction from 90 to 93 percent to 30 to 45 percent using this criterion can be
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Currently, prov~n state-of-the-art fuel technologi is not sufficient, however,' to petm{t enrichment reducti6n below 20 percent fbr reactors,~~eherally speaking, for re~citors great~r in power th~n 5 to 10 m~gaw~tts
- without substantial ieductidn in the U-235 density, therefore, we consider use of 20 percent for that range of power; say 5 to 50 megawatts* probably moment.
well,* it is not practical at the COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Given the various constraints you have imposed on them.
MR. LEWIS:
That's right.
Now, for reactors where there exists an excess design margin in power per unit of heat transfer area,. that is typically for plate~type reactors of less than 5 to 10 megawatts, additional enrichment. reduction to less than 20 percent I would say is possible by increasing the fuel thickness and maintaining moderator to fuel ratio or somewhat reducing that ratio and that means reducing the number of plates per fuel and increasing the flow somewhat.
But I think that is quite practical for virtually all reactors in that -- almost
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Now, very high uranium density.uranium fuel meat technolog.+/-es*
currently-:,uri.der~rdeve:l9pment in the U.S. and in Europe*, show promise of providing sufficient uranium density to permit enric:hment reductions *from,90/93 percent *to belbw 20 percent while maintaining u~235 density regardless of the power level of the reactor, while maintaining reactor*
performance~ I think, for virtually -- well, let's say 90-95 percent of the reactors in the world.
That's what we are doing in a large part of the DOE programs,.developing that hew:~ery high uranium density fuel.
A brief overview in Section..
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- of.the Program Organization, the budget and the schedul~ of the prcigram.
There are four major elements to the program.
The first one is generic analytical studies* of reduced-enrichmerit designs.
Looking at them in four broad classes, aluminum plate water, the TRIGA, zirconium hydride designs, D2o and uo2 designs.
Really, all aspects of designs are being looked at.
Then secondly, there are case studies being done for a very large number of new and existing reactors.
For each one, looking at the enrichment reduction options for that specific reactor.
The reactors fall very nicely into those,,classes, so these specifics are not an overwhelming job to do.
We are doing these case studies also to support the Executive Branch reviews of export license applications and for
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16 Thirdly,_ there is a portion of the, program which provides technical support to int~rmediate eniichment
- ~~ductions fto~*30 to 45.percent, and I should add there.
that, that task has;.also. taken the reduction to '20 percent enrichment where that can be done right away.
And within that maybe.near-term eil.richment reduction effort which applies to all U.S. or...f6;reign.reactors:::supp,lied from th.e U.S., w~.
are.. d6ing generic fuel engineering ~esign studies, procurement specification sample preparations, safety analysis sample preparatioris, and also undertaking demonstration fuel fabrication programs where appropriate.
And then there is the large low enrichment fuel development program which is aimed at developing uranium -- well, fuel meat tedhnologies of sufficiently high density, uranium density to permit 20 percent enrichment use under our criteria in virtually all reactors except the highest power ones.
In that advance fuels program, we are looking at a wide variety *of fuels and they,are..,listed here, the u3o8
- and the UALx fuels, they are currently the state of the art fuels.
Silicide, uranium moly fuels, UO2, TRIGA fuel de:velopmen s also.
We are seeking international participation and we are engaged not only in the metallurgJ.cal,. developments and associated burn-up tests, but also generic fuel design studies in looking
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17 at fuel specs and safety analysis effects and undertaking demonstration programs.
Now, as ~urrently structured this is invisioned to be a five-year, $10 million ~rogram initiated March l~t of this year.
Th,e budget break down, it is on page 11, should be taken, I think, with -- well, it is a te*ntative.budget break down,.ifior:,years:,b_eyond.. 1979 it is, of course COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This is DOE money?
MR. LEWIS:
This is DOE money, but I included* i,t so you can get a feeling for the gerieral dis~iibu~ion of efforts between the design analysis, the intermediate enrichment application study efforts and the low.enrichment work; and also the various organizations that are involved'liere.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Do you have any where a list of these 90 reactors with an indication of which class*'.,they fall in to and what you think can.be done with them?
MR. LEWIS:
Yes, we do, both for the U.S. and for foreign reactors.
The list is relatively easyftb come by.
As to specifi9 statements' as to what class they fall* in, we *need to be somewhat hesitant on that.
This is a matter of very great sensitivity to many reactors, and we have taken the tact that we.do our own studies internally.. at Argonne, but before we publish ~*d~fihitive statement on how far down-enrichment they can go, we do studies jointly with the reactor involved.
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- on that, but yoq have td realize that it is not eas~ to ~et all of.the de~ails.of fuel ~es~gn in a particular reactors, le:t' s say. BR-2 in Belgium, *.w~t.:Bound that when we were in Europe we did not have the current.fuel design specifications on thai reactor and as the result they were no£ ~'.candidate for substantial enrichment reductioris in the near term.
It turns out ---
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Which is a lack of infor-mation?
MR. LEWIS:
Well, we thought they were using the old uranium aluminum alloy technology.
It turns out they had sw:L tched to uranium aliiminide technology:*at the high test currently available uranium density, and as the result they are at 9'3 percent enrichment, whereas the result in the short run there is no way tq reduce their enrichment under our criteria.
It will have to await the development of the higher density. fuels.
But it is that sort of thing that I really hesitate to give definitive answers on exactly how much enrichment reduction a given reactor is capable of without a study involving the reactor operation themselves.
But broadly, any reactor below 5 rrle.gawatts can almost certainly go to reduced enrichments.
Now, the only exception is that there are a few cases :Land MIT is a_good example, where even at 5 megawatts
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And they have very good performance at ~hat power.level.
Now*for them, there is ho technology switch you.can
- make now that won't rriove them ba'ck in,performance.. But t,here are only very few m:5:'those.
- COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Well, it would be useful to
_have your internal working notes.
MR. LEWIS:
I can give you those, the listing and they really are listed as our current thing is that they can go to such and such an enrichment.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Haven't we sent o_ut questionnaires asking fqr information.
MR.
D. HOYLE:
These have been done -- this informatio has normally been expected at the time the export license application is made~
We have, in some cases said that if° they want to expedite the export licensing procedure when it occurs that they ~ould give Up.that information in advance so that it could be reviewed by the Argonne people and we wouldn't have to start from scratch at the time th~ export license application was made.
In fact, there are some people coming in_from the European community, particular the NUKEM people in a couple of weeks, to govover all of the reactors for :which they provide fuel to determine what information is lacking on those reactors
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.20 that we need for these analysis.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
take a look at this?
Does the NRC staff get to
'MR. D'.,.HOYLE:
.*certainly the information is availabie.
We~have not.adtually to date gotten -- we have gotten sort of the details of the Argonne* information, but I see rto r*eason* that -- we have gotten summaries, if you will.
- COMMISSIONER.. GILINSKY: Is that no!tlmally sent forward with the applications or, *with your* advice?
MR. D.* HOYLE:
Well, I think the problem that Dick hasn't yet hit oh is that there are no fuel fabricators for most of.* these fuels.
We have. got a very practical problem.
Even though the fuels exist, ~he fabticators don't exi~t, and this has been one of the things we have been trying in the iast few weeks to help resolve.
The manufactures have been manufacturing the fuels in accordance l~r9e,y -- of course, there is no U.S. fuel
- fabricato~s of plate-type fuels any longer since U.S. Nuclear has gone.out of the business, except those which ut+/-lize DOE-owned equipm~nt and d*o this on a* c~st-plus, fixed-fee basis and their capacity is rather limited.
So most of *t.he capacity for plate-type fuel exists in Western Europe, NUKEM and CERCA'specifically, arid of course, they have eVen been fabricating the GETR fuel and for the Sterling Forest carbide reactor in Germany.
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Well, were.do we go from here* then,. suppose. Argonne concludes that a... certain claim I
- of reactors with no degradation in *performanc*e accept lower enrichment fuel, what happens then?
MR. D.. 'HOYLE:
Well/ I think it is a carrot a,nd stick propositi6n, agaip.
We.ultimately are going t6 h~ve to force the issue.,y.On the other hand, in our recent visit to Europe to NUKEM and CERCA we found that these*companies had anticipated.this development and were in the. process of getting ready, at least in terms of looking at advanced developments and so on.
Now, again, one of the real problems is they are handling one enrichment currently,' 93 percent, and it complicates their manufacturing life substantially to go to two or eveµ to three enrichments.
Some have indicated they don't want to handle more than *the maximum of two *under any circumstance:
In this intermediate eririchment which Dick has briefly alluded to, we.have told everyone that we are not going to.have 17 int~rmediate enrichm~nts.
We are going to ultimately, after.some screeriing, decide on one enrichment so there will only be basically three, 20, -something between say 30 and 45, *.and a 93 percent.
They are moving toward this certainly, and General Atomic has announced a 20 percent fuel which would be a replacement for its current 70 and 93 percent fuels.
In
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10 11 12-13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 22 some cases this is based on an*extrapolation of really, a state of the art technology, butt.hey seem *to have a high
,degree of confi~ence ~n thi~, going* from essentially 12 weight percent uranium to 45 weight percent uranium in their fuel:
- So some of these~ftie&s conceivably could be use~
in reactors currently using plate-type fuels, but.again to some extent that the reactor operator has --- he may be reluctant to change for a n'umber of reasons., including_ the necessity of getting new regulatory approvals and so forth.of his national authorities.
So it is going to* take a li.ttle
- while. arid it is a number of sort of coordinated and parallel actions, I. think, a:iser;::_goipg to be necessary to COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But this other aspect is.
also being addressed, in other words, how to implement it?
MR. D. HOYLE:
Oh, yes.
We have talked with*,~.these fabricators, there is ~onsideration being given to a meeting of fabricators from around the world,,~,perhaps at Argonne in the fall.
I believe the Eur.opean community is going to ask us to talk to users in the European.community.
The users, in fact, seem* somewhat more reluctant, ::'f.or u11-derstandable reasons, I think; than the fuel fabricators.
The fuel fabricator§' only concern is can they still make a profit, and that's their.major concern.
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. 21 22 23 24 25 23 MR. LEWIS:.Okay, that brings us well in to this*
second point ~nd~r the prcigram, u~s. ~nd Foreign Re~ctiori to the Program.
Briefly it has been following page 5, Section 5.2.
The reaction of U. S ** and foreign re.search reactor operators and fuel $uppliers to the thrust o'f the* U.S.* *.,program has been. favorable, IIthlnk::it-:~:is:-;fair to say, but cautious.
ANL is currently initiating reduced e~richment studies for.new reactors, jointly with *the Japanese and the Australians.
In fact, personnel exchanges on those*programs start this month.
They are both designing new reactors, the only two new ones in the world that I.know of.
We are also undertaking at A:NL
- -7. numerous* case studies of reduced enrichment cohve~sions of existing u.. ~.
- and foreign reactors.
Many of these are or will be joint*
studies with the affected groups.
Now, the U.S. and European fuel suppliers, I think, are moving quickly, much more quickly than I had expected to be in a position to. supply high uranium density, low eririche replacement_ fuels for existing and new reac.tors at 20 and 45 percent enrichment, starting in one* to two years, maybe even a little less than a year.
The fuel fabricators, the commercial ones 1 are, of course, General Atorh+/-c for zirconium hydride uranium fuels.
- They have moved out very quickly, partly due to DOE sponsors.hip
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- They plan riot to prodrice any more highly enriched fuel.
MR. D:JHOYLE:
Incide~tally, if I could interrupt, Dick, one of the major motivations*in this has been the ever-increasing cost of, phys,ical. secu~i ty 'in highly enriched
- I uranium fuel, and th~y now b~lieve that about 40 percerit of their fabrication costs are related to accountability and physical security.
Now., while this won It' entireJ:y be eliminated by going to 20 percent'or less, a major portion will.
MR. LEWIS:
Especially if any of their work is 93.
MR. D. HOYLE:
Yes.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
It seems to me to make a lot more sense by having*:*.low:er enrichment fuel than by having a lbt of policemen around and that really is a very desirable development.
MR. D. HOYLE:
-Well, that~s the idea, that's the overall point of all of this.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: So it is a terribly important thing to do.
MR. D. HOYLE:
We have sold the lowering of HEU largely to foreign countries not on the aspect that we mistrust your intentions, but rather we all have problems with terrorism and irresponsible parties.
So really this program
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MR. LEWIS:
Now, NUKEM fn, GermanT_:*and c;:ERCA in France have. moved,_ I think, very quickly in doing -- they
. both produce ULA'x:_ a-lumi-nide fuel types, and they have done
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anh.amazing. amount of work in the last few months looki:r:ig-at vert pigh ur_an'iurri loadings.
Thei ~on't tellQusceveiyihing t:qey know for proprietary reasons, but they are p~epar:~r\\9"-
for this coming up/
Reactor operators are much* less.up-beat.
They are concer.ned, of course, primarily about reliability* of fuel supply and abou_t the performance *of the reactors and very leery-about prb];:llems that might be raised in safety and li,censincj reviews associated with going to the lower enrich-ments.
They, of cours*e are worried about the* ratcheting:~,.
effect that when the safety and licensing reviews are reopened, even for this item that other things would be brought in that
.would basically put them out of business.
They are cautious,
- to* say the least.
Then skipping on to page 15, as an overview statement, though most reactor.operators in the U.S. and abroad~ can see the fea~ibility of the U.S~ enriphment reduction strategy broadly.
Many operators of existing reactors at 30 mega~atts
_and above feel that near-term enrichment reduction is infeasible for them, that is, enrichment reductions must await development of higher uranium density fuels.
We generally
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So I think.there is pretty, much a meeting of the minds if you stick, to the :µo reduction in:_15erf.ormance criteria, but perhaps some increase in fuel cost if you go that way.
- Now,., l~t me skip over this area of Program Statui:;,
you can read that if you are interested,.but it is underway--*
~ubstantially underway.
All right, let me just very*briefly say with regard to Item 6, starting on page 18, there is an overview here of State-of-the-Art of Resear6h Reactor'Fu~ls Te6hhology, we are talking ',about basically th~ee fuel types:
Aluminum plate fuel loaded with either uranium'aluminum alloy at say.
18 or 20 weight percent uranium, U3O8 aluminum or ULAx aluminum and the latter two the state of the art is 42 to 45 weight percent.
Secondly, there _are the U-ZrH TRIGA type rodded fuels that curently are produced at 8 and a half and 10 weight percent uranium and at 20, 70 and 93 percent enrichment and this is the GAI line.
Then there us UO2 rodded fuel that is used for a couple of reactors in the U.S., the so-called pulsar reactors.
Well, the uo 2 rodded fuel is basically power reactor fuel.
Now, jumping over to page 21 let me just say a few
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First of all, increasing the weight percent of uranium in any one. of th~se fuels increases the uraniu~
density, both because the fuel meat density increases and because a *.fraction of the density, :.that'.is;the uranium increases.
The figure on the next page shows the *effect, that is, there is a compounding effect, as you go*to higher weight fra6tions of the dispursed fuel phase fhe uranium loadings in grams per cubic centimeter,go up more rapidly than the weight fraction.
It also illustrates how very low the uranium loadings are in these fuel meats, not only on the order of 2 ---
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Why is that, in order to get
. an alloy :with, good.properti:es?
MR. LEWIS: Well, basically you want -- it is either metalltirgical 1. limits in the case of zirconium hydrides situation or what they thought were metallurgicai.* limits, but in the aluminum.*.plate"'."'type arrangements what_. y~:rµ need is very thin, very uniform di~tributions 6f fuel in the fuel meat to avoid hot spots and get a lot of heat transfer surface.
And you need a reasonable economical fabrication _technique such as rolling.
But that's why this comes out --
I mean this compared with, for example, maybe 9 grams per cc, maybe 9 or 10 it would be 9 grams per cc in U02.
So you see, you are '.:
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CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But the answer principally is yes to your*question.
The properties of your fuel meat under radiation -- temperature and radiation conditions are what you are*fighting.
You are also fighting fabrication proba~ly to a certain.extent.
You load the:
meat compact up, you..
get to progressively harder materials to roll out and maintain in a fuel flight, th~ unifor~ity of distribution and the thickness properties and so on, the dog-boning, the fish-tailing out at the ends of the plates. is getting to really be a fierce. problem.
MR. WILLIAMSON:
.I think it is also safe to say frankly~ that you are also fighting a lot*of ineitia.
You could fabricate good fuels this way reasonably and cheaply, there wasn't much point in trying to do anything else until
_a COUJ?le of things happened once the development of the very very high flu~ reactors, on the one hand, and second the non-proliferation concerns.
MR. D. HOYLE:
Well, this is not a big business.
It is run on pretty profit margins, so the margin for research and development has witnessed the fact that some 9 fabricators have come and gone in the U.S. since the beginning days, 9 or
- 10.
NUKEM, for example, said that under the impetus of the new U.S. policy, when they first started looking at this
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 29 about a year ago, they now have learned a technique which they did not describe, which permits*higher uranium loadings in all types of fu~ls,.even and including the alloy fuels with yields which are ~s least as good or better than they
.had beeri g~~ting bef6re. ** So I agree:with Rick, it is just sort of an inertia which is largely borne of economic considerations.
MR. LEWIS:
That's why I think it is fair to say that the inertia comes from economics and conservatism.
After all, you have got to have very reliabl~ fuel and when you get one that works, you don't change that unless there is a very good reason.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, there's a good reason.
MR. LEWIS:
Okay, now you have a new criterion.
But briefly, what are the prospects for increased uranium loadings, and I would break this into three areas.
The aluminum plate-type fuels, the TRIGA type fuels and speciaJ fuels.
Now, you can start with the state-of-the-art aluminum plate~type fuels, U3Og or aluminide dispersions in aluminum, and you can raise the weight percent.
And it is felt by the experts in the U.S. and I-~find now in Europe also, that you can probably go successfully.from the 42 weigh percent uranium.up to perhaps 60 or maybe 65 weight percent, particularly the aluminide looks attractive, but both are being
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There are the_ problems that you alluded to in that but I think that will be_ successful.
And that.. iri itself would permit 95 percent of the reactors in the.world to ~o to 10 percentr if you *could just do that.
'Now, in the second area of TRIG.A, uranium zircon_ium
- hydride tuels, of course TRIGA has less of a problem*: * 'They are 'inherently a lower reactor.
It is a rodded reactor and inherently you have got less heat transfer surface per gram of fuel and that sort of.design, even though you make the.pins -
we are talking about very small pins for their high pow~r reactor.
So they can more easily go to 20 percent for their m~rket, but they have undertaken partially at DOE expense, development of higher uranium loading of zirconium hydride fuel, they have under development 20 wei'ght percent, 30 w_eight.
percent and 45 weight percent.
They are very optimistic as it typical of General Atomic, I think generally, about all of those fuels.
I guess I am less sure, but I'm sure that the 20 percent-is feasible, maybe the 30 percent and hopefully the 45.
They say they are ready to. give~ fixed price bit on fuel delivered at 45 weight*
percent and I can just say, well, I've got my fingers crossed for them.
There is a lot of testing, of course, that has to be done yet on that, in my view.
Now, going on then to the special fuels U02 -- one
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- way that you can use uo2 is in platelet form, thin plats clad in Zircail9y.
I am told that at various points in the U.S. fuel development program for power reactors such as EBWR, t6is was part-of ou~ program and it m~y be part of the mili_tary program for _c;'!.11 I know, but the French, as a matter of fact, seriousiy plan. ~o use thin plate UOi, they call it their_carafuel -.fuel design, so seriously that CEA is currently fabricating a full core of this type of fuel for a *.Asyris which is a 70 megaw~tt reactor.
It is currently using MTR, uranium alfiminum plate type fuel and it will go_to~ this thin UO2 plate fuel at Boinewhere ih,the 7 to 8 percent enrichment range.
MR. D. HOYLE:
If I might interject there, I think the big question }!)erhaps is not whether this fuel will work, but what it will cost.
What they are doing is on_st:i:ictly a bench scale and most people think this will be a very expensive fuel to fabricate on a commercial scale.
.MR. LEWIS:
There is also the question of fuel reliab-ility, because in o~der to make it reasonable economical, they are going to have to back off on quality of the fuel.
And if they do that there are reaL questions as the French can see
- it whether the fuel can stand the power densities that are in these cores.
So it is a test which is one of the French answers to the r~dttbed enrichment problem.
Now, beyond the U3O 8 and ULAx work in the area of
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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 32 special fuels the U.S. is currently looking at uranium 10 percent molly, uranium silicide and UC 'to~ fu~l meats, either as platelets --.directly as platelets.~r as distiibuti6ns in aluminum.
Those are quite a bit more speculative, but they do hold out-the prospect -of much higher thermal conductivity than l.J02. and very high uranium densities.
If they were successful, I think you could talk about reducing all of the. research re.actors down, if not to 20 percent, at least to say 45 percent enrichment.
But that has got to await the success of those developments.
I noticed in our discussions with the ~rench that the CEA people were also lobkirig at the U-10 m6lly for this application.
Well, in conclusion, let me just go to page 24 and make a pitch for a few things that the NRC could do to help us in the program.
Firstly, as we have already discussed with Bill Ross in Reactor Safeguards Branch in NRC, it would be very useful to have the NRC_ promulgate.safeguards regulations, specifically for test and research reactors in the first place, reflecting their particular situation.
But beyond t~at, regcilations that would give credit for enrichment reductions below 93 percent, but substantially above 2d percent.
And I.. think specifically 45 percent, but the optimum would*be a sliding scale of, let's say the trigger quantity of fuel as a function
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- of enrichment.
Secondly, yori are goirig to be receivirig lic~nse applications for upe of ULA aluminum, and probably U3Og X
alumi.num fue,ls in.,licensed reacto~~ replacing uranium aluminum alloy, friels wit~i~ the U.S.
And, these license applications, especialli the first few.would be very helpful to expedite these.
The University of Michigan, in fact, h~s one now in and pending for a*UALx conversion that happens to be at 93 percent enrichment and a very low weight percent.. Th.at is
'I I
a particular situation, and:wh.en United Nuclear went out of business there were no sotirces for their fuel, so DOE asked At6mics International to make them fuel~
Atomics International makes only aluminide fuels.
So.what they did,* they backed off from the state-of-the-art weight percent ~ay down to, I don't know, 5 weight percent:or something, uranium a very low mix, but at 93 percent enrichment and gave them fuel that has their same u~235 per plate.
But that conversion, there is a safety analysis report or license in for license review now, an addendum.
MR. D. HOYLE:
Dick, if I could just interject one other thing here.
Not only do I think it is important to get some of these fuels in and demonstrated, I think that is going to be the proof test for the reactor operators, but since so many regulatory bodies abroad do look to the NRC's rule-making and
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20 21 22 23 24 25 34 decisions in their own practice, that this would*have sort of a double--barrel positive effect going toward lower enrichmertts, I believe.
MR. WILLIAM:SON:
In some places in the world that may *well' be the pacing:' if:e.in.
In some countries,* we were.
~old'the reactor operat6is ~re doini-:almost ~nithing t6 not change anything, because they don't want to vqid their licensing set up ~s long as they don't change anything, you know, their license continues.
The minute they_ change anything, even in the direction of greater safety,.. they need an entirely new license.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
We have that proplem'too..
MR. WILLIAMSON:
We were rather surprised.by the degree to which, when we talked to people at the IAEA advisory group meeting that we all attended, how rriuch the reactor operators were more concerned by*the lic~nsing and safety implications than they were by fuel cycle costs or whether the fuel.w,ould
- work or anything else.
COMMISSIONER.GILINSKY: Well, who is in charge of this here, do we have somebody who is overseeing this here?
MR. GOSSICK: No, I think NRR is generally aware of what is going on, but I'm not sure.
You talked to, I believe, Ross in Reactor Licensing.
MR. LEWIS:
We gave a briefing similar to this to J. Miller?
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Yes.
.eOMMISSIONER GILINSK¥:
Isn't he.in Secur1ty?
,CHAIRMAN HENDRI~:
Th~t's on the.security side, to see what differences you might make. ~ith regard.to. 93 versus 4 5 to. 20 on the security, maybe/ The ques tio11-s.of revi*ewing applications for changeover to increased* uranium loading decrea~ed enrichment_ of fu:e1s*' woU:1a. come --~
MR. GOSSICK:
Out of U~e operating reactor **branch, probably, Stello, -woulqn't it?
.CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yep.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
It woul,d seem to me it. would be good_if there was just.somebody who is a contact point for others.*
MR. LEWIS:
So far, B_ill Ross has done this.
MR. GOSSICK:
Bill Ross has done that?
MR. LEWIS:
Yes, but that's more in the safeguards area.
But he has taken the initiative,on*:thatt MR. GOSSICK:
I will talk to Ed C_ase' and see.
-COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
See if this isn't important enough that there just out to be one person that you can g~
MR. WILLIAMSON:
One of the recommendations coming out of*the advisory group meeting was that the IAEA consider holding a further speciai group, whether it be.an advisory group or a meeting of consultants it wasn't clear, to assist
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 36 countries that wanted to look into questions of regulation, safety and-what have_ you with respect to research reactors and the use of the low enriched fuels. -
I assume that the agency will accept that recommendation.
We will *be scheduling*
a meeting of experts and I think it is very clear that.the countries concerned will be looking to the U.S., and that means.
in this case the NRC, for some leadership in how you go about making safety analysis for these new fuels and how you draft regulations to conform to the new fueis, et cetera.
I don't
- know how quickly the IA.EA will be moving on this, but I anticipate we will be having a meeting probably within 6 months to.year in this area.
So I think some preparatory work will probably be needed.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
This is all terribly impor-tant~unfortunately there are artifical constraints* that impede this job.
Who is handling this at DOE?
MR. LEWIS:
The people involved are Sal Ceja (C-E-J~A) in International Affai~s and Wade Ballard (B-A-L-L-A-R-D) in Nuclear Energy.* Wade is COMMISSI0NEFL GILINSKY: The research people aren't involved in it?
MR. LEWIS:
No, this is all within Thorne's.-- well, International Affairs is separate, but within Thorne's area.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I would have thought that --
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wouldn't John Deutch be fundin,g some of this work here.* in*
the sense,that 7-~
MR. LEWIS:
Let,me.defer. that'..:. __
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
I guess I meant that'some of the research efforts.,in the labs would :O1;1.ly fall,; under him.
r-1R. *LEWIS:
Oh, the* uses o:f;.reactors, definitely do.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Yes, but John's research *empire in the lab~:stems towards the basic research.
I guess it is the non-biomedical basic research, physics, chemistry COMMISSIONER GI.LINSKY: 'Well, is there some informal group of someth1ng that pursues' this?
- MR. D.:::*H0YLEJ:1c:_, po*Jyo.u1:inean<J0.'ithin :DOE or,otherwise?
There is a subgroup, cfhe::.NSC:.a:d hoc group on nonproliferation which follows HEU matters.
In fact,* :t chair that group and it.has interagency representation including the
.NRC, I might add.
We are*going to_ have a meeting on.Friday to bring peopie up to speed of that group.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
WhO is our representative?"
MR. b.: :HOYLE:
Jim Shea or one of his people has participating in that.
MR.. WILLIAMSON:
Much of that same group, in turn, overlaps the same group on nuclear export control.
So a lot of the same representatives are involved.
So this gets cranked
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.38 into that quite heavily.
CHAIRMAN.HENDRIE:
Let's see, yoµ'a,re in touch with
'that group, that's.f.1.ne.
You have a good reason then to have contact in Reacto:r:- Safeguards Branch or the security aspects' are cover~d.
I think it would b.e-usef1:1l to sort of bring on
- poard. the saf~ty side. r~viewers.in NRR who*. have to deal with applications to go o'ver *from the highly enriched.. ~fl*;w direction,-
MR. GOSSICK:
I will taik with Ed and see*what he wants.to set up *.
- CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: -- the plate forms and so on and get. a lead contact ~:there.
I ',:!:tf~fils,,,iL;NRC could:.. *do., ::particularly,
.work on. tfue,.,like, cqU:ld do an effective. job in reviewing.
amendments, or at least the first. few when they finally come in, the reactors that will be coming in.attempting to do this that that might encourage others to set*fo.rward*.and talk to fuel suppliers.
Are all the research reactors contracting -- they are having to contract in Eur9pe, I guess, for elements?
MR. LEWIS:
No, well, the ones that are.,privately funded, I think generally:~are, but those that could get their funding through DOE are generally now still going through DOE and DOE _,:is seting up Atomics, International to provide their fuel supplies.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Plate-type?
MR. LEWIS:
Plate-type.
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On a cost-plus, fixed-fee basis.
Wel:l, actually they.would provide it, whereas before they have*been' giving ~~finaricial grant toward the.procurement of such fuel when U.S *. Nuclear and others were operating.
Now, they would simply just be providing the fuel~--
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:.
We are sti_ll supporting MR. D. HOYLE: *oh; yes.
About.a dozen or something like that.
Ten, I think, something 8 or 10 which 'the University of Missouri of one of them, University of Michigan.and so forth.
This fortunately gives us a little additional leverage in trying to encourage the reactor*;operators to reduce enrichments, and we are going to try to make maximum use of. that as w~ll.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let's see, there is' an outfit in Massachusetts that makes the MR.. LEWIS:
Yes, that's Texas Instruments.
That's also CPFF.
'CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
makes the HIFR f'(iel.
MR. LEWIS:
Well, also they are going to production for HFRB in Brookhaven.and ORR.
Then again, there is no commercial fabr'icators, they want to use higher uranium density fuels but highly enriched.
So they are going to Texas Instrucment, but that's CPFF.
Of course, AI in California primarily makes ATR fuel for the Naval facilities,and they*.are sort of branching in to this research reactor thing as means to divert some of the
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MR. D. HOYLE:
But they made it very clear to us, although they were. totally unintereste~ in getting in to this in a cominerical basis, that 'it was again, a very small potential profit ahd a very high equipment : investment*.
MR. WILLIAMSON: I might make one or two other quick observations.
Irr the first place, with respect to safeguards and security, to the extent that there were matters that were either within the Executive Branch purview or in the combined purview of the Executive Branch and the NRC, we have already moved in ~everal cases, away from the use of contained U~235 as a standard that we would set towards effective kilograms as a means of encouraging use of lower enrichments.
I think that's one possible solution to the problem for domestic appl{cati6n heie, as well.
MR. D. HOYLE:
We'will, by the way, shortly be requesting the NSC to interpret the Presidential..threshold approval levels as being effective rather than contain kilograms So that will encourage the use of lower enrichments.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Let's see, a kilogram of 20 percent MR. D. HOYLE:
This only applies to above 20 percent.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
is zero effective kilograms?
MR. D. HOYLE:
Right, right.
So even 70 percent, roughly, would be only a little
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 more th~ri half, in terms, that means you could go ~wice as much U-235.as you could 41
- MR. WILLIAMSON:
S.ix times the 4'5 percent, et cetera.
Secondly,.we have talked briefly to the IAEA and to.the Austrians about the possibflity of a demonstration, a foreign demonstration at the De~~sivor~d6rf Reactor.
That is ncit the only candid, but it is one for a fairly early demonstration that these highe*:r:. weight percent f~els can be used effectively.
We do think that it is important to have a fairly early demonstration.
MR. LEWIS:
I think it is worth saying that from a safety and license point of view that the intermediate enrichment, reductions.either to 45 percent or in some c.ases at 20, mean the introduction of existin~ technology.
It is used in ATR, it is used in HIFR, HFBR and so on, so it is not totally new, but it is*now for the reactors involved.
They have to be assured of the safety and for many countries it is a new technology for them.
MR. D. 'HOYLE:
We also believe that there will CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
I don't think.there is that much safety involved.
MR. LEWIS:
I don't either.
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If. you can run a 40 weight percent UAL mix in aluminum with uranium fully enriched and drive it out to high burnout, you sure don't look for much problem by taking
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 42 the same metallurgical mix that on a 20 percent enrichment and running tha~ out nntil the reactivity is run down and you have to tuin the machine off and reload, becarise you just will.have fewer fissions per cubic centimeter of that matrix material for radiation damage ---
M*. LEWIS:
But I.. have argued a *fact on* that b~sis that yo,u probably 'don **t n~ed any demonstrations,
- big large scale'demonstrations, full scale burnouts, but reactor operators are more conservative.
They want to CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Ah, they talked to our licensing people.
(Laughter)
MR. D. HOYLE:
I might also add that we expect some proposals for cooperation from the foreign fabric~tors, perhaps,from CEA as well, which is developing the carame*i fuel.
The limitations are largely as one would suspect in the pr6prietari information area, but there might be exchanges of sample and some irradiations and reactors of the respected countries.
We are kind of open, in a way, for proposals _and there seems to be.an interest in this area.
MR.. WILLIAMSON:
There is one final thing which has not been publicly announced which I think I can say here, and that is we~hope to have an announcement, perhaps this week, at the UN special session on disarmament of a program of expanded cooperation in the nuclear field, modest program.
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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 It is largely in the nature* of a g~sture, but
. ihclU:ded-in that woulci"be some"_;moriey by the'.IAEA fb:r; '
20 percent fuel an¢]. for fapr,ication s_ervices, so,that instead of.rely~n~ exclusively on the stick of not making HEU; ~~ai~able~ w~ ~ill also haye ~ome'. carr6t~ to off~t people as a positive encouragement' to 16~er enrichments~*
COMMISSIONER GILINSI<Y:
And you said* t:,hat you may organize.a seminar at Argonne?
MR. LEWIS:
Well,. there are two meetings that are coming up tha~ are planned, one is primarily for fuel
.fabricators and for major.R&D organizations such as CEA and I
the like where we would lo'ok at, first of, all, generic.
problems in reduced enrichment designs, phy_sics and:
engineering, and secondly, try to get the manufacturers to give* us as much information as they will on where they stand on being able to manufacture this stu£f.
We had planned.to maybe organize such a thing in
. S~pte_mber or *October of this year, probably by invitation only,
,but invite particularly the French, the Germans and the Japanese.
Those are the main categ9ries.
Then a broader meeting is planned probably next year by IAEA of reactor operators on the broad subject of upgrading and renewal of existing reactors and new reactors, the problems there.* That will include case studies in enrichment reduction.
So there are those things coming up.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 44 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE:
Okay.
Lee, if you would look
- in to the NRR licensing side so *that all of the NRC. group otight to have interest in and~~rficipation in this so it could be brought.for~ard and understand this effort ~nd the usefulness of moving a~eid. with things like the sp~bific*case now in hand, the Unive*rsity of Michigan, that would be.;ery good.
I thank you very much for. coming, Dick~
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:
Thank you, that.was a very nice briefing.
CHAIRMAN. HENDRIE:
We appreciate it very much.
It was very informative and very helpful.
(Whereupon, the Commission took a brief recess at 10:45 then proceeded on to other business.)
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