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.
1 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA*
2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 BRIEFING BY REPRESENTATIVES OF 5
DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABdRATORY 6
ON RESE~RCH. REACTORS 7
(Open to Public Attendance) 8*
9 Commissioners' Conference Room 10 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W.
11 Washington, D. c.
12 Wednesday, June 7, 1978 13 The Commission met, pursuant to notice at 9:40 a.m.,
14 Joseph Hendrie, Chairman, presiding.
15 PRESENT:
16 Chairman Hendrie 17 Commissioner Gilirisky 18 ALSO PRESENT:
19 R. Lewis* (ANL)
R. Nack (DOE) 20 D. Hoyle (State)
W. Williamson (ACDA) 21 J. Hoyle_
L. Gossick 22 23 24 25
2 I
\
1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2
3 CHAIRMAN HE~DRIE: If we c6uld come to order.
4 Commissioner Kennedy, I'm afraid isn'.t going to make.it and 5 Cominissioner Bradford will' be in, :'_iri .a bit. . Why don't we go
- 6 ahead.
7 Th'e subj'ect this morning is a. briefing. hy ~epresen:...
8 tatives of DOE and Argonne National Laboratory on Research 9 Reactors, and in particular on the development program aimed 10 at reducing the n~eded le~el of enrictiment. of fu~l:for l'l research reactors.
12 MR. LEWIS: I'm Dick Lewis from Argonne*National 13 Laboratory. Chairman Hendrie, Commissi,oner Gilinsky, I. have 14 taken the libert:y of inviting two other gentlem.en, Mr. Dixon 15 Hoyle from Department of State and Mr. Richard Williamson from Arms Control Disarmament Agency.
16 17 They have been instrumental, particularly in policy 18 portions of the development of this program, and I thought it might be useful for them to be here.
19 20 CHAIRMAN. HENDRIE: We are very glad they-::could come.
21 MR. LEWIS: If you have in front of you the briefing documents that I prepared, and I can direct your attention to 22 the table of contents, let.me just quickly go over what we 23 have here.
24 25 TheEe.is more~d~t~il than I will try to handle
3 1
verbaily here, but basically I would like to start with 2
.review of the g6als of the program, .a few items on 3.
the research test reactor de~ign considera~ions basically 4
that feed in to the program ground rules, then a dis*cussion of 5
what determines the acceptability of reduced~nrichrnent fuel 6
in research reactors. From .that, develop di~cussion 6n our 7
current enrichment reductiori strategy.
8 Th~n under Item 5,
- the program its elf, I want . to .talk 9
about the current organization and structure of the program.
10 The reaction that we have had to it, both here in the United 11 States and abroad, then the status of the program.
12 Item 6 and 7, I will just brush over very lightly 13 and they review the current state of the art.in research 14 reactor fuel technology and the prospects :for improve.ment of 15 that technology. And then I want to spend just a couple of 16 minutes talking about NRC actions that would help us in this 17 program.
18 So to begin with the goals, this program is a part of 19 the Non-Proliferation policy effort within the U.S. Gov~rnment.
20 In this particular* case the principal goal of the program is 21 to improve the proliferation resistance of fuels used in 22 research and test reactors.
23 The particular concern is with highly enriched fuel 24 during its fabrication, transport and storage prior to 25 substantial burn up. It is felt that there is a potential for
4 1
diversion of the material, particularly in those activities.
2 Now generally *this program is i'ntended to provide 3
a technical m~ans f6r reducing the enrichment of the fuel 4 ' ' '
substantially below 90 to:93 percent enric~mett, both in U.S.
s*
and foreign -reacto+s. The long-term <;roal is* t'o reduce the 6
enrichment*below
. . . . 20 percent or at l(;;!ast, to a mi'nimum.
7 enrichment. Recognizing that there :will probc;1.bly always be a 8
few very high power research reactors for which reduced 9* enrichments will not be feasible.
10 Now, going to Item 2, starting on page 2, let me 11 briefly touch on those aspects~-cif research reactor desigri that can strain one's options* in looking at reduc;::ed enrichments.
13 First of all the main obje~tive of good research 14 reactor design.is maximum flui for a given cost. B~cau~e:
15 cost corolates. very:_:*closely with power level in the reactor, 16 you are generally talking about trying to maximumize flux 17 to power ratio. That is done by minimizing core volume.for 18 a given power. That is s0rt of the key item for research 19 reactors. You want to _have small cores which lead you, of cours, 20 to maximizing volumetric ,pbwer,,density .*
21 Now,in that situation where you have high volumetric 22 power densities the limiting factor in the design is the 23 temperature of the coolant at the surface of the fuel element, 24 at the fuel plate surface, and the factors that in turn determin 25 that maximum temperature relative to say boiling, usually you'ar
,5
,1 talking about a factor relative to boiling . The factors
. that determine that temperature are the heat*flux, th~t.is 3
the power per unit_ of surface area and how fast the coolant 4
is flowing past the surface whi?h determines boundary :~ayer, 5
thickness and therefore,dT. (Delta T)
- across the bou~q.a,ry layer.*
6 So generally, the higher power of reactor xou are 7
talking about or higher power'density you .need to increase the 8
heat transfer ~urface area per unit volume of the reactor and 9
flow faster. So that is why for 'higher power reactors you 10 typically see.thin plate, thin type designs with high flow 11 rates.
12 Now, the key performance parameters in a research 13 *,,
test ieactor from the user's point of view are the~fast flex 14 in the core and the thermal flex in the reflectors and in the 15 core flex traps. Generally thermal flex in the core or in the 16 fuel is not a very important parameter, and as it tu~ns out, 17 the incore fast flux and the excore ~eflector flux trap 18 therrnalflexes are determined principally by the. power .:density.
19 So you~:come back to the power density again.
20 So much from the user's point of view, but from the 21 physists point of view the problem, of course, also is to provid 22 sufficient reactivity to overcome burn-up losses, operating 23 losses in the temperature coefficient, xenon, samarium, the 24 reactivity involved in the experiments in order to provide 25 a certain amount of control.
6 1
Now, you have got a few ways to adjust reactivity
,2 and one, of course, is the core size, but here we want to.*
3 minimize size, the*. mode:r;-ator* to U-235 ratio,. U-235 loading 4
in*the core, the reflector type and size that you pick.
5 Generally .reac:tivity can be increased by increasing the*core 6
size, going to a more optimum ord.er to U-235 ratio, increasing 7,
the .U'-'.235 loading.or using better reflectors or moderators.
8 Now, burn-up.losses are rori~hly in propotion to the 9
fractional loss of U-235 per megawatt day. You are talking 10 about maybe L 25 grams per megawatt day of U-235 burn-out in 11 the core. The reactivity loss is rorighly proportional to the 12 fraction, that is, of the total U~235 loading~ So yciu can 13 extend core life by increasing th~ total U-235 loading in the i4 core. But this is limited by *.,_:--;*:just;:putting *+/-n::more*:u-235 15 is limited you don't want to get excessive.*reactiyi ty 16 from a safety point of view and also, you are limited by the 17 fact that the fuel volume available is limited. And after 18 providing for moderator and cladding, you can only do a 19 certain amount by putting more U-235 in there, especially 20 when you need a thin-type design.
21 Lastly, of course, one has to be sure and maintain ,,.
22 in any variations, the negative power coefficients and 23 temperature coefficients which for aluminum water plate type 24 reactors, principally come from the under-moderated design.
25 You are running on the low side of the water to a U-235 ratio
7 1
and you want to maintain that. For lower enrichment 2
designs, of cours~, doppler becomes a factor, and f~t burn-up 3 ,,
of poison situation such .as in TRIGA~; . :xou can get some 4
substantial negative.temperature coefficient through the spectral-shifts accompanying t'emperature changes.
A:1.1 right, those briefly are :.the main factors in 7
the design.
8 Now, with reg~rd to acceptability of reduced 9
enrichment of fuel,. I would like to say a few things here, 10 starting on page 4. Res~arc~/t~st reaciois ~11 ov~r th~ world, 11 including the United States are under intense cost pressure 12 and they have to keep cost down. and are trying, at the same
- 13. time, to maximize flux le~els. This* is every operator you 14 talk to. I think, in that connection i t has to be 15 recognized at the outset that the use of lower enrichment 16 fuels causes inherently poor f lux~.per-uni t-power performance 17 and higher cost relative to the use of higher enrichment fuels~
18 This is particuiarly true for higher power reactors.
19 The reasons for that are that there is ia somewhat 20 lower reactivity per gram of U-235 at lower enrichments, 21 patricularly if you get below about say 15 percent enrichment.
. 22 Secondly, and very important, is that simply putting 23 in U~238 displaces core volume which you can't,therefore, use 24 for other~things such a~ clad.or~h~~t~transfer surface.
25
- Now, the reduced enrichment re.actor design studies
8 1
that we are engaged in are aimed at ,minimi:z:ing the performance 2
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 i t 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 6
that you. a're in t;her'e {~'that. we hav-e.* under developme_ntthighe'1:
7
.*uranium density fuel t;~es *:fo~ research re.actors which we say 8
will make, i t feasible to *use
- 1ower enr.icihmen.ts in reac'tors ~
9 But i t is* tr:µe that one ca_n turn thi:it a.round and say, well, 10 fine we can use*the higher* uranium.density fuels, but at 11 highly enriched uranium arid get yet better performance. That 12 is a sticky i~em.
13 Well, gettirig back to the acceptability of reduced 14 enrichment fuels, if. you simply lower the enrichment in 15 current de~igns i t really has a catastrophic effect.* The 16 reactiv'ity, of course, immediately goes down and 'that drops 17 core* life of a given core way.down or if you compensate by 1.8 increasing the core size, your power density is. down and 19 therefore flux performance is down and you are .faced with 20 having to raise reactor power, a very costly item.*
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Could you say s:omethihg 22 about the popul~ti~n of research reactors? In other words, 23 there must be a relatively small number of h.igher*;power 24 research reactors which are utilized to a great degree and 25 asserts considerable pressure to perform and io on, and I would
I 9
1 guess a larger population of smaller reactors which are 2 probably not used this intensively for.whfch,these consider-3 ,ations :might be less. relevant.*
4' MR. LEWIS: Iri fact, I will get to. that exact point, 5 but ~o answer your .question ~irectly there are in the world
, * ' i 6 on the ord~r, Idon't know, 90 or so research reactors.
7 Of those, perhaps 20 are high pqwer, high perfo~mance, and 8 ano~her 30 or so -- 40 1 are 6f intermediate power,. 5 to.J50 9 megawattsoand the rest are lower power, a megawatt or two 10 and below. It definitely is t~ue that :the low power ones 11 can go to 20 percent now. It. is really the intermediates that -
12 , well, _the high power i t is very difficult. It is really the 13' intermediates where a cas~-by-case situation has to be looked 14 at.
15 All right, so I'm just saying here that simple 16 reduction enrichment in current designs is basically a
,17 catastrophic*_ situation for any research reactor" and_,_that:.,
18 needs to be avoided. So the criterion that we have adopted 19 in the program that_ we consider practical from an acceptability 20 SEan~p6int for reduced enrichments is the following:
21 Use less than 20 percent enrichment fuel, or if 22 that is not practical minimize the enrichment in a situation.
23 Look at i t case~by-case.
24 Secondly, as a basic criterion there should be 25 no significant reactor performance reduction of flux per unit
. 10 1
power relative to high ~nriched fuel currently u~e~ in the 2
- existiµg reactor~**
Now some reduction will probably be necessary, but 4
no sigri'ificant reduction compared to the existing'h,ighly-5 ,,
eniiched reactor design. *Now,for new reactors it*i~ less 6
clear, but we have beeri taking ~s-*a working criteria that 7
relative to high-enriched fuel designs typical.ly used. fqr 8
that reactor at this time, at the same power .that they should 9
get apprciximately the same performance ..
- 10 Thirdly, there should be minimum fuel cycle cost*
11 increases relative to current highly enriched fuel. There are 12 going to be increases, but I hope not overwhelming.
13 Conversion to reduced enrichmerit fuel should raise 14 a minimum of new safety and licensing issues, and this is 15 particularly rel~vant to existing reactors ..
16 Finally, for existing reactors there should be no 17 requirement for.reactor or facility modifications. In particula, 18 no need to increase the power substantially because that 19 really gets tnto a very costly operation.
20 So those* are the criterion that we have used.
21 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What does that mean, no 22 facility modification?
23 MR. LEWIS: Basically it means they should not have 24 to raise their power levels substantially in order to reach 25 the same or essentially the same flux performance, which means
11 1
from attechnical point.of view that the core size* needs to 2
remain .the .. same' since you have the power . d,ensi ty ..
' ,, * ' '
- I' I '
3 CHAIRMAN.HENDRIE: An~nteresting problem, in order 4
- I to maintain the powe:t:'. density.* *in these conditions., you 5
. actually. have to ,slightly nqmirially ho\d the same, but 6
. actually** slightly ~nc;;:rease the U-235. cf~risity. for unit volume**
7
. 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 9
it wi.th .uranium *which -your.:*.unan+/-um:.Jhas .not got a
- lot of 238*, in 10 it.
11 MR. LEWIS: Exactly, you are stealing my punch line.
12 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Oh, sorry about .that .
. :13 MR. LEWIS: That is exactly right, though, and that 14 is an interesting problem *and as it turns out,. just to jump 15 ahead a little.bit the reason you can do something with-th~t 16 problem in the *short run is because m()st reactors do not use 17 the current state of the art with regard to uranium density, 18 but for those who do use the current state.of fhe art we have 19 to go to higher uranium densities and that is what the 20 deyelopment program is large'1:y::.a*11 about.
21 . Ail right, so what is -:;:::i.gging on to Item 4, Enrich-22 ment Reduction Strategy: starting with those criterion then, 23 what can be done? Well, if you go down the list of things 24* you want to maintain, maintain reactor performahce, flux per 25 unit power, that requires that the reduced enrichment core must
12
\
I
\
1 have the same volume.or -- and the same or perhaps somewhat 2
more, fissile mass than the highly enriched core~ This 3 ' .
implies t6 the first .order that the U-235 density in. the 4
reduced enrichment core must be the same as' or somewhat more 5
than the U-235 density in the highly enriche:!d core.
6 Seco~dly, maintaining fuel cycle cost reqriires 7
that the burn-up capability for fuel element in the reduced 8.
enrichment ease must .be the same or greater than that in the 9
highiy enriched case and the cost of fabrication must be the 10 same or less in the reduced enrichment case. That second one 11 is probably not going to be met. The first one can be met 12.
though.
13 Now, the first *of these requirements, that is burn-up 14 capability again implies you need the same U-235 loading in the 15 fuel element. Now the extent to which new safety and l'icensing 16 issues are raised in any redesign are minimized by minimizing 17 reactor design changes, particularly in the area of ~afety 18 parameters, .. reactivity coefficient, safety margins and the 19 physical barriers to fission product release. This implies 20 avoiding changes, .to among other things, core modera,tor to 21 fuel ratio, heat transfer area~*per unit power and cladding 22 materials.
23 Generally we would like to limit chinges to just 24 changing the fuel element and maybe increasing the flow rate.
25 Facility modifications can be avoided if the reactor
13 1
power doesn.'t have to be increased or if you don}c:t have to 2,
have s,ubsta~tial thermai'"'hydraul+/-c:::;chang~s such as very mucb
,3 '
larger flow rates.
4, Now, *these factors suggest an.enrichment reductions 5
strategy that -is* .based on the working criterion tnat. is. ne*cessar
,6 to maintain the u...:235 load_ing per _fuel elem~rit at least a's 7
large.in the reduced eririchmeni d~sign as in the current highly 8
enriched desigh.
- It is true, as you point out~ that reactivity
- . or cost considerations may dictate somewhat. highe1; U-235 Ioacf-10 ings per fuel element in the lower enriched designs.
11
Now, *U-235
- loading can be maintained by increasing 12 the uranium derisi ty in the fuel in proportion to the dec.rease 13 in the enrichment, and/or.by increasing the *useable fuel meat 14 volume per* fuel element .. This is the practical working 15 criterion that we are using.
16 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: What is fuel meat?.
17 MR. LEWIS: If you think of a fuel plat~,* a typi6al 18 research. reactor has a cladding and then there is a region 19 inside.which is usually a mixture of some d3orm of. uranium 20 and ;~L_umi~~rrf:: and that is called the fuel meat. It is thcrili.ght 21 of- iri the sandwich>analogy, the clad* is bread.
22 We have looked at a lot of these research reactor 23 designs and at fu~l capabilities and we feel that increased 24 uranium density sufficient to permit enrichment reduction from 25 90 to 93 percent to 30 to 45 percent using this criterion can be
14 1
achieved in many' existing MTR-plate-type fuel designs in .
2 th~ 5 to 50 megawatt ~ange without changing the fuel ~eat 3
volume, and that is ,substitution of state-of-the-art high C
4 . ' '
uranium density u3 o 8 . aluminum .. or UALx aluminum f\l,el nieat 5
technology for currently used relatively low* uranium densjty, 6
uranium altimihµm.~lloy~t~chhologi. Currently, prov~n state-of-7 the-art fuel technologi is not sufficient, however,' to petm{t 8
enrichment reducti6n below 20 percent fbr reactors,~~eherally 9
speaking, for re~citors great~r in power th~n 5 to 10 m~gaw~tts
- 10 without substantial ieductidn in the U-235 density, therefore, 11 we consider use of 20 percent for that range of power; say 12 5 to 50 megawatts* probably well,* it is not practical at the 13 moment.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Given the various constraints 15 you have imposed on them.
16 MR. LEWIS: That's right.
17 Now, for reactors where there exists an excess 18 design margin in power per unit of heat transfer area,. that 19 is typically for plate~type reactors of less than 5 to 10 20 megawatts, additional enrichment. reduction to less than 21 20 percent I would say is possible by increasing the fuel 22 thickness and maintaining moderator to fuel ratio or somewhat 23 reducing that ratio and that means reducing the number of plates 24 per fuel and increasing the flow somewhat. But I think that is 25 quite practical for virtually all reactors in that -- almost
15 1
all reactors in that power range, say below 10 megawatts.,*
2 ' '
Now, very high uranium density.uranium fuel meat 3
technolog.+/-es* currently-:,uri.der~rdeve:l9pment in the U.S. and 4
in Europe*, show promise of providing sufficient uranium density 5
to permit enric:hment reductions *from ,90/93 percent *to belbw 6
20 percent while maintaining u~235 density regardless of the 7
power level of the reactor, while maintaining reactor*
8 performance~ I think, for virtually -- well, let's say 90-95 9
percent of the reactors in the world. That's what we are 10 doing in a large part of the DOE programs, .developing that 11 hew:~ery high uranium density fuel.
12 A brief overview in Section .
- 5
- of .the Program 13 Organization, the budget and the schedul~ of the prcigram.
14 There are four major elements to the program. The first one 15 is generic analytical studies* of reduced-enrichmerit designs.
16 Looking at them in four broad classes, aluminum plate water, 17 the TRIGA, zirconium hydride designs, D2 o and uo 2 designs.
18 Really, all aspects of designs are being looked at.
19 Then secondly, there are case studies being done 20 for a very large number of new and existing reactors. For 21 each one, looking at the enrichment reduction options for 22 that specific reactor. The reactors fall very nicely into 23 those, ,classes, so these specifics are not an overwhelming job 24 to do. We are doing these case studies also to support the 25 Executive Branch reviews of export license applications and for
16 1
domestic reactors, reviewing their enrichment reduction 2
options.
3 Thirdly,_ there is a portion of the, program which 4
provides technical support to int~rmediate eniichment 5
- ~~ductions fto~*30 to 45.percent, and I should add there.
6 ' '
that, that task has; .also. taken the reduction to '20 percent 7
enrichment where that can be done right away. And within 8
that maybe.near-term eil.richment reduction effort which applies 9
to all U.S. or...f6;reign .reactors:::supp,lied from th.e U.S., w~.
10 are .. d6ing generic fuel engineering ~esign studies, procurement 11 specification sample preparations, safety analysis sample 12 preparatioris, and also undertaking demonstration fuel 13 fabrication programs where appropriate. And then there is 14 the large low enrichment fuel development program which is 15 aimed at developing uranium -- well, fuel meat tedhnologies 16 of sufficiently high density, uranium density to permit 20 17 percent enrichment use under our criteria in virtually all 18 reactors except the highest power ones.
19 In that advance fuels program, we are looking at 20 a wide variety *of fuels and they ,are .. ,listed here, the u o 8
- 3 21 and the UALx fuels, they are currently the state of the art 22 fuels. Silicide, uranium moly fuels, UO2, TRIGA fuel de:velopmen s 23 also. We are seeking international participation and we are 24 engaged not only in the metallurgJ.cal,. developments and associated 25 burn-up tests, but also generic fuel design studies in looking
\'
17
.1 at fuel specs and safety analysis effects and undertaking 2
demonstration programs.
,3*
Now, as ~urrently structured this is invisioned
,4 to be a five-year, $10 million ~rogram initiated March l~t of 5
this year. Th,e budget break down, it is on page 11, should 6
be taken, I think, with -- well, it is a te*ntative .budget
.7 break down,.ifior:,years:,b_eyond .. 1979 it is, of course 8
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This is DOE money?
9 MR. LEWIS: This is DOE money, but I included* i,t so 10' you can get a feeling for the gerieral dis~iibu~ion of efforts 11 between the design analysis, the intermediate enrichment 12 application study efforts and the low .enrichment work; and
. '13 also the various organizations that are involved'liere.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Do you have any where a list 15 of these 90 reactors with an indication of which class*'.,they 16 fall in to and what you think can.be done with them?
17 MR. LEWIS: Yes, we do, both for the U.S. and for 18 foreign reactors.
19 The list is relatively easyftb come by. As to 20 specifi9 statements' as to what class they fall* in, we *need to 21 be somewhat hesitant on that. This is a matter of very great 22 sensitivity to many reactors, and we have taken the tact that 23 we .do our own studies internally . at Argonne, but before we 24 publish ~*d~fihitive statement on how far down-enrichment they 25 can go, we do studies jointly with the reactor involved. I
18 1
wouldn't mind sending you our internal working documents 2
- on that, but yoq have td realize that i t is not eas~ to ~et
.3 all of .the de~ails .of fuel ~es~gn in a particular reactors, 4
le:t' s say. BR-2 in Belgium, *.w~t.:Bound that when we were in
..,C:
Europe we did not have the current.fuel design specifications 6
on thai reactor and as the result they were no£ ~'.candidate 7
for substantial enrichment reductioris in the near term.
8 It turns out ---
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Which is a lack of infor-10 mation?
11 MR. LEWIS: Well, we thought they were using the
,12 old uranium aluminum alloy technology. It turns out they 13 had sw:L tched to uranium aliiminide technology:*at the high test 14 currently available uranium density, and as the result they 15 are at 9'3 percent enrichment, whereas the result in the 16 short run there is no way tq reduce their enrichment under our 17 criteria. It will have to await the development of the 18 higher density. fuels. But i t is that sort of thing that I really hesitate to give definitive answers on exactly how much 20 enrichment reduction a given reactor is capable of without 21 a study involving the reactor operation themselves. But 22 broadly, any reactor below 5 rrle.gawatts can almost certainly 23 go to reduced enrichments.
24 Now, the only exception is that there are a few 25 cases :Land MIT is a_good example, where even at 5 megawatts
19 1
they have gone for performance reasons, to high expense 2
fuels, the state of the a~t'ULA~ fuel at 93 percent enrichment.
3.
And they have very good performance at ~hat power.level.
4 Now*for them, there is ho technology switch you.can 5
- make now that won't rriove them ba'ck in ,performance.. But t,here 6
are only very few m:5:'those.
- 7 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, i t would be useful to 8
_have your internal working notes.
9 MR. LEWIS: I can give you those, the listing and 10 they really are listed as our current thing is that they can 11 go to such and such an enrichment.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Haven't we sent o_ut 13 questionnaires asking fqr information.
14 MR. D. HOYLE: These have been done -- this informatio 15 has normally been expected at the time the export license 16 application is made~
17 We have, in some cases said that if° they want to 18 expedite the export licensing procedure when i t occurs that 19 they ~ould give Up.that information in advance so that it 20 could be reviewed by the Argonne people and we wouldn't have to 21 start from scratch at the time th~ export license application 22 was made. In fact, there are some people coming in_from the 23 European community, particular the NUKEM people in a couple 24 of weeks, to govover all of the reactors for :which they provide 25 fuel to determine what information is lacking on those reactors
.20 1
that we need for these analysis.
2.
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Does the NRC staff get to
.3 take a look at this?
4
'MR. D'., .HOYLE: .*certainly the information is 5
availabie. We~have not .adtually to date gotten -- we have 6
gotten sort of the details of the Argonne* information, but 7*
I see rto r*eason* that -- we have gotten summaries, if you will.
8
- COMMISSIONER .. GILINSKY: Is that no!tlmally sent 9
forward with the applications or, *with your* advice?
10.
MR. D.* HOYLE: Well, I think the problem that Dick 11 1
hasn't yet hit oh is that there are no fuel fabricators for
- 12 most of.* these fuels. We have. got a very practical problem.
13 Even though the fuels exist, ~he fabticators don't exi~t, and 14 this has been one of the things we have been trying in the iast 15 few weeks to help resolve.
16 The manufactures have been manufacturing the fuels 17 in accordance l~r9e,y -- of course, there is no U.S. fuel 18 *fabricato~s of plate-type fuels any longer since U.S. Nuclear 19 has gone.out of the business, except those which ut+/-lize 20 DOE-owned equipm~nt and d*o this on a* c~st-plus, fixed-fee basis 21 and their capacity is rather limited. So most of *t.he 22 capacity for plate-type fuel exists in Western Europe, NUKEM 23 and CERCA'specifically, arid of course, they have eVen been 24 fabricating the GETR fuel and for the Sterling Forest carbide 25 reactor in Germany.
21 1
COMMISSIONER --GILINSKY: Well, were .do we go from 2
here* then,. suppose. Argonne concludes that a ... certain claim
- 3. I ' * *
- of reactors with no degradation in *performanc*e accept lower 4
enrichment fuel, what happens then?
5 MR. D.. 'HOYLE: Well/ I think i t is a carrot a,nd 6
stick propositi6n, agaip. We.ultimately are going t6 h~ve 7
to force the issue. ,y .On the other hand, in our recent visit 8
to Europe to NUKEM and CERCA we found that these*companies 9
had anticipated .this development and were in the. process of 10 getting ready, at least in terms of looking at advanced 11 developments and so on.
12 Now, again, one of the real problems is they are 13 ' . ' .
handling one enrichment currently,' 93 percent, and it 14 complicates their manufacturing life substantially to go to 15 two or eveµ to three enrichments. Some have indicated they 16 don't want to handle more than *the maximum of two *under 17 any circumstance: In this intermediate eririchment which Dick 18 has briefly alluded to, we.have told everyone that we are not going to.have 17 int~rmediate enrichm~nts. We are going to 20 ultimately, after.some screeriing, decide on one enrichment 21 so there will only be basically three, 20, -something between 22 say 30 and 45, *.and a 93 percent.
23 They are moving toward this certainly, and General 24 Atomic has announced a 20 percent fuel which would be 25 a replacement for its current 70 and 93 percent fuels. In
22 1
some cases this is based on an*extrapolation of really, a 2
state of the art technology, butt.hey seem *to have a high 3 ' ' '
,degree of confi~ence ~n thi~, going* from essentially 12 4
weight percent uranium to 45 weight percent uranium in their 5
fuel: *
,6 So some of these~ftie&s conceivably could be use~
7 in reactors currently using plate-type fuels, but.again to 8
some extent that the reactor operator has --- he may be 9
reluctant to change for a n'umber of reasons., including_ the 10 necessity of getting new regulatory approvals and so forth.of 11 his national authorities. So it is going to* take a li.ttle 12-
- while. arid it is a number of sort of coordinated and parallel 13 actions, I. think, a:iser;::_goipg to be necessary to 14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: But this other aspect is.
15 also being addressed, in other words, how to implement it?
16 MR. D. HOYLE: Oh, yes. We have talked with*,~.these 17 fabricators, there is ~onsideration being given to a meeting 18 of fabricators from around the world, ,~,perhaps at Argonne in 19 the fall.
20 I believe the Eur.opean community is going to ask 21 us to talk to users in the European.community. The users, 22 in fact, seem* somewhat more reluctant, ::'f.or u11-derstandable 23 reasons, I think; than the fuel fabricators. The fuel 24 fabricator§' only concern is can they still make a profit, 25 and that's their.major concern.
23
' )
l MR. LEWIS: .Okay, that brings us well in to this*
2 second point ~nd~r the prcigram, u~s. ~nd Foreign Re~ctiori 3
to the Program. Briefly it has been following page 5, 4
Section 5.2.
5 The reaction of U. S ** and foreign re.search reactor 6
operators
.. and fuel $uppliers to. the thrust o'f the*
U.S .* *.,program 7
has been. favorable, IIthlnk::it-:~:is:-;fair to say, but cautious.
8 ANL is currently initiating reduced e~richment 9
studies for.new reactors, jointly with *the Japanese and the 10 Australians. In fact, personnel exchanges on those*programs 11 start this month. They are both designing new reactors, the 12 only two new ones in the world that I.know of.
, 13 We are also undertaking at A:NL :-7. numerous* case 14 studies of reduced enrichment cohve~sions of existing u .. ~.
15
- and foreign reactors. Many of these are or will be joint*
16 studies with the affected groups.
17 Now, the U.S. and European fuel suppliers, I think, 18 are moving quickly, much more quickly than I had expected 19 to be in a position to. supply high uranium density, low eririche 20 replacement_ fuels for existing and new reac.tors at 20 and 45
. 21 percent enrichment, starting in one* to two years, maybe even 22 a little less than a year.
23 The fuel fabricators, the commercial ones 1 are, of 24 course, General Atorh+/-c for zirconium hydride uranium fuels.
25 - They have moved out very quickly, partly due to DOE sponsors.hip
24 1
of work thel7e, but they are now talking about a complete line 2
of 20 percent enriched fuel for all of their reactors ..
- They 3
plan riot to prodrice any more highly enriched fuel.
4 MR. D:JHOYLE: Incide~tally, if I could interrupt, 5
Dick, one of the major motivations*in this has been the ever-6 increasing cost of, phys,ical. secu~i ty 'in highly enriched
- 7 I ' '
- uranium fuel, and th~y now b~lieve that about 40 percerit of 8 their fabrication costs are related to accountability and 9 physical security. Now., while this won It' entireJ:y be 10 eliminated by going to 20 percent'or less, a major portion 11 will.
12 MR. LEWIS: Especially if any of their work is 93.
13 MR. D. HOYLE: Yes.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It seems to me to make a lot 15 more sense by having*:*.low:er enrichment fuel than by having a 16 lbt of policemen around and that really is a very desirable 17 development.
18 MR. D. HOYLE: -Well, that~s the idea, that's the 19 overall point of all of this.
20 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: So i t is a terribly important 21 thing to do.
22 MR. D. HOYLE: We have sold the lowering of HEU 23 largely to foreign countries not on the aspect that we mistrust 24 your intentions, but rather we all have problems with 25 terrorism and irresponsible parties. So really this program
25 l*
is basically a physical security sold program, if you will.
2 MR. LEWIS: Now, NUKEM fn, GermanT_:*and c;:ERCA in 3
France have. moved,_ I think, very quickly in doing -- they 4
. both produce ULA'x:_ a-lumi-nide fuel types, and they have done 5,
,' ' ' ' ~ -
~ ,,. ****"-*- .* -- . .:: / '
anh.amazing. amount of work in the last few months looki:r:ig- at 6
vert pigh ur_an'iurri loadings. Thei ~on't tellQusceveiyihing 7
t:qey know for proprietary reasons, but they are p~epar:~r\9"-
8 for this coming up/
.9 Reactor operators are much* less .up-beat. They 10 are concer.ned, of course, primarily about reliability* of 11 fuel supply and abou_t the performance *of the reactors and 12 very leery- about prb];:llems that might be raised in safety and 13 li,censincj reviews associated with going to the lower enrich-14 ments. They, of cours*e are worried about the* ratcheting:~,.
15 effect that when the safety and licensing reviews are reopened, 16 even for this item that other things would be brought in that 17 .would basically put them out of business. They are cautious, 18 * :to* say the least.
19 Then skipping on to page 15, as an overview statement, 20 though most reactor .operators in the U.S. and abroad~ can 21 see the fea~ibility of the U.S~ enriphment reduction strategy 22 broadly. Many operators of existing reactors at 30 mega~atts 23 _and above feel that near-term enrichment reduction is 24 infeasible for them, that is, enrichment reductions must 25 await development of higher uranium density fuels. We generally
26 1
agree with that, especially for those reactors currently 2
using the highest st'ate of the art .uranium dens-i ty fuel 3
techriolog:j:es. So I think.there is pretty, much a meeting of 4
the minds if you stick, to the :µo reduction in:_15erf.ormance 5 ,,
criteria, but perhaps some increase in fuel cost if you 6
go that way.
- 7 Now, ., l~t me skip over this area of Program Statui:;,
8 you can read that if you are interested,.but i t is underway--*
9*
~ubstantially underway.
10 All right, let me just very*briefly say with regard
.11 to Item 6, starting on page 18, there is an overview here of 12 State-of-the-Art of Resear6h Reactor'Fu~ls Te6hhology, we 13 are talking ',about basically th~ee fuel types: Aluminum 14 plate fuel loaded with either uranium'aluminum alloy at say.
15 18 or 20 weight percent uranium, U3O 8 aluminum or ULAx 16 aluminum and the latter two the state of the art is 42 to 45 17, weight percent.
18 Secondly, there _are the U-ZrH TRIGA type rodded fuels 19 that curently are produced at 8 and a half and 10 weight 20 percent uranium and at 20, 70 and 93 percent enrichment and this 21 is the GAI line. Then there us UO2 rodded fuel that is used 22 for a couple of reactors in the U.S., the so-called pulsar 23 reactors. Well, the uo 2 rodded fuel is basically power 24 reactor fuel.
25 Now, jumping over to page 21 let me just say a few
27 1
about the prospects for development of higher uranium loading 2
fuels. First of all, increasing the weight percent of
.3 uranium in any one. of th~se fuels increases the uraniu~
4 density, both because the fuel meat density increases and 5
because a *.fraction of the density, :.that'.is;the uranium 6
increases.
7 The figure on the next page shows the *effect, that is, 8
there is a compounding effect, as you go*to higher weight 9
fra6tions of the dispursed fuel phase fhe uranium loadings 10
- in grams per cubic centimeter ,go up more rapidly than the 11 weight fraction. It also illustrates how very low the 12 uranium loadings are in these fuel meats, not only on the 13 order of 2 ---
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Why is that, in order to get 15
. an alloy :with, good .properti:es?
16 MR. LEWIS: Well, basically you want -- it is either 17 metalltirgical 1. limits in the case of zirconium hydrides 18 situation or what they thought were metallurgicai .* limits, but 19 in the aluminum .*.plate"'."'type arrangements what_. y~:rµ need is 20 very thin, very uniform di~tributions 6f fuel in the fuel 21 meat to avoid hot spots and get a lot of heat transfer surface.
22 And you need a reasonable economical fabrication _technique 23 such as rolling. But that's why this comes out -- I mean this 24 compared with, for example, maybe 9 grams per cc, maybe 9 or 10 25 it would be 9 grams per cc in U02. So you see, you are '.:
28 1 fighting that probl~m right off the bat.
- 2. CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: But the answer principally is 3 yes to your*question. The properties of your fuel meat under 4 radiation -- temperature and radiation conditions are what 5 you are*fighting. You are also fighting fabrication proba~ly 6 to a certain .extent. You load the: meat compact up, you ..
7 get to progressively harder materials to roll out and maintain 8 in a fuel flight, th~ unifor~ity of distribution and the 9 thickness properties and so on, the dog-boning, the fish-10 tailing out at the ends of the plates. is getting to really be 11 a fierce. problem.
12 MR. WILLIAMSON: .I think it is also safe to say 13 frankly~ that you are also fighting a lot*of ineitia. You 14 could fabricate good fuels this way reasonably and cheaply, 15 there wasn't much point in trying to do anything else until 16 _a COUJ?le of things happened once the development of the very very high flu~ reactors, on the one hand, and second the 17 non-proliferation concerns.
18 19 MR. D. HOYLE: Well, this is not a big business.
It is run on pretty profit margins, so the margin for research 20 and development has witnessed the fact that some 9 fabricators 21 have come and gone in the U.S. since the beginning days, 9 or 22 10.
23 NUKEM, for example, said that under the impetus of 24 the new U.S. policy, when they first started looking at this 25
29 1
about a year ago, they now have learned a technique which 2
they did not describe, which permits*higher uranium loadings 3
in all types of fu~ls, .even and including the alloy fuels 4
with yields which are ~s least as good or better than they 5
.had beeri g~~ting bef6re. ** So I agree:with Rick, i t is just 6
sort of an inertia which is largely borne of economic 7
considerations.
8 MR. LEWIS: That's why I think i t is fair to say 9
that the inertia comes from economics and conservatism.
10 After all, you have got to have very reliabl~ fuel and when 11 you get one that works, you don't change that unless there is 12 a very good reason.
13 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Well, there's a good reason.
14 MR. LEWIS: Okay, now you have a new criterion.
15 But briefly, what are the prospects for increased 16 uranium loadings, and I would break this into three areas.
17 The aluminum plate-type fuels, the TRIGA type fuels and 18 speciaJ fuels.
19 Now, you can start with the state-of-the-art 20 aluminum plate~type fuels, U3Og or aluminide dispersions in 21 aluminum, and you can raise the weight percent. And i t is 22 felt by the experts in the U.S. and I-~find now in Europe also, 23 that you can probably go successfully .from the 42 weigh 24 percent uranium.up to perhaps 60 or maybe 65 weight percent, 25 particularly the aluminide looks attractive, but both are being
30 1
loo].<ed at. There are the_ problems that you alluded to in that 2
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.
5
'Now, in the second area of TRIG.A, uranium zircon_ium 6 ' - '
- hydride tuels, of course TRIGA has less of a problem*: * 'They 7
are 'inherently a lower reactor. It is a rodded reactor and 8
inherently you have got less heat transfer surface per gram 9
of fuel and that sort of.design, even though you make the.pins -
10 we are talking about very small pins for their high pow~r 11 reactor. So they can more easily go to 20 percent for their 12 m~rket, but they have undertaken partially at DOE expense, 13 development of higher uranium loading of zirconium hydride 14 fuel, they have under development 20 wei'ght percent, 30 w_eight .
15 percent and 45 weight percent.
16 They are very optimistic as it typical of General 17 Atomic, I think generally, about all of those fuels. I guess 18 I am less sure, but I'm sure that the 20 percent-is feasible, 19 maybe the 30 percent and hopefully the 45. They say they are 20 _ ready to. give~ fixed price bit on fuel delivered at 45 weight*
21 percent and I can just say, well, I've got my fingers crossed 22 for them.
23 There is a lot of testing, of course, that has to be 24 done yet on that, in my view.
25 Now, going on then to the special fuels U02 -- one
31 1
- way that you can use uo 2 is in platelet form, thin plats 2
clad in Zircail9y. I am told that at various points in the 3*
U.S. fuel development program for power reactors such as 4
EBWR, t6is was part- of ou~ program and i t m~y be part of the s,
mili_tary program for _c;'!.11 I know, but the French, as a matter 6
of fact, seriousiy plan. ~o use thin plate UOi, they call it
' 7 their_carafuel -.fuel design, so seriously that CEA is currently 8
fabricating a full core of this type of fuel for a * .Asyris 9
which is a 70 megaw~tt reactor. It is currently using MTR, 10 uranium alfiminum plate type fuel and i t will go_to~ this 11 thin UO2 plate fuel at Boinewhere ih ,the 7 to 8 percent 12 enrichment range.
13 MR. D. HOYLE: If I might interject there, I think 14 the big question }!)erhaps is not whether this fuel will work, 15 but what i t will cost. What they are doing is on_st:i:ictly 16 a bench scale and most people think this will be a very 17 expensive fuel to fabricate on a commercial scale.
18 .MR. LEWIS: There is also the question of fuel reliab-19 ility, because in o~der to make i t reasonable economical, they 20 are going to have to back off on quality of the fuel. And if 21 they do that there are reaL questions as the French can see 22 *it whether the fuel can stand the power densities that are 23 in these cores. So it is a test which is one of the French 24 answers to the r~dttbed enrichment problem.
25 Now, beyond the U3O 8 and ULAx work in the area of
32 1
special fuels the U.S. is currently looking at uranium 10 2
percent molly, uranium silicide and UC 'to~ fu~l meats, either 3
as platelets --.directly as platelets .~r as distiibuti6ns in 4
aluminum. Those are quite a bit more speculative, but they 5
do hold out-the prospect -of much higher thermal conductivity 6
than l.J02. and very high uranium densities.
7 If they were successful, I think you could talk 8
about reducing all of the. research re.actors down, if not to 9
20 percent, at least to say 45 percent enrichment. But that 10 has got to await the success of those developments.
11 I noticed in our discussions with the ~rench that 12 the CEA people- were also lobkirig at the U-10 m6lly for this 13 application.
14 Well, in conclusion, let me just go to page 24 and 15 make a pitch for a few things that the NRC could do to help 16 us in the program.
- 17. Firstly, as we have already discussed with Bill Ross 18 in Reactor Safeguards Branch in NRC, i t would be very useful 19 to have the NRC_ promulgate.safeguards regulations, specifically 20 for test and research reactors in the first place, reflecting 21 their particular situation. But beyond t~at, regcilations 22 that would give credit for enrichment reductions below 93 23 percent, but substantially above 2d percent. And I .. think 24 specifically 45 percent, but the optimum would*be a sliding 25 scale of, let's say the trigger quantity of fuel as a function
\,
33 1
- of enrichment.
2 Secondly, yori are goirig to be receivirig lic~nse 3
applications for upe of ULA , X aluminum, and probably U3Og alumi.num fue,ls in. ,licensed reacto~~ replacing uranium aluminum
- 5 alloy, friels wit~i~ the U.S. And, these license applications, 6
especialli the first few.would be very helpful to expedite 7
these. The University of Michigan, in fact, h~s one now in 8
and pending for a*UALx conversion that happens to be at 93 9
percent enrichment and a very low weight percent. . Th.at is 10 'I ' I a particular situation, and:wh.en United Nuclear went out of 11 business there were no sotirces for their fuel, so DOE asked 12 At6mics International to make them fuel~ Atomics International 13 makes only aluminide fuels. So.what they did,* they backed off 14 from the state-of-the-art weight percent ~ay down to, I don't 15 know, 5 weight percent:or something, uranium a very low mix, 16 but at 93 percent enrichment and gave them fuel that has their 17 same u~235 per plate. But that conversion, there is a safety 18 analysis report or license in for license review now, an 19 addendum.
20 MR. D. HOYLE: Dick, if I could just interject one 21 other thing here.
22 Not only do I think it is important to get some of 23 these fuels in and demonstrated, I think that is going to be 24 the proof test for the reactor operators, but since so many 25 regulatory bodies abroad do look to the NRC's rule-making and
34 1
decisions in their own practice, that this would*have 2
sort of a double--barrel positive effect going toward lower 3.
enrichmertts, I believe.
4 MR. WILLIAM:SON: In some places in the world that 5
may *well' be the pacing:' if:e.in. In some countries,* we were.
6
~old'the reactor operat6is ~re doini-:almost ~nithing t6 not 7
change anything, because they don't want to vqid their 8
licensing set up ~s long as they don't change anything, you 9
know, their license continues. The minute they_ change 10 anything, even in the direction of greater safety, .. they need 11 an entirely new license.
12 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: We have that proplem'too ..
13 MR. WILLIAMSON: We were rather surprised .by the 14 degree to which, when we talked to people at the IAEA 15 advisory group meeting that we all attended, how rriuch the 16 reactor operators were more concerned by*the lic~nsing and 17 safety implications than they were by fuel cycle costs or 18 whether the fuel .w,ould
- work or anything else.
19.
COMMISSIONER.GILINSKY: Well, who is in charge of this 20 here, do we have somebody who is overseeing this here?
21 MR. GOSSICK: No, I think NRR is generally aware of 22 what is going on, but I'm not sure. You talked to, I believe, 23 Ross in Reactor Licensing.
24 MR. LEWIS: We gave a briefing similar to this to 25 J. Miller?
35 1
MR. GOSSICK: Yes.
2
.eOMMISSIONER GILINSK¥: Isn't he .in Secur1ty?
3
,CHAIRMAN HENDRI~: Th~t's on the.security side, 4
to see what differences you might make. ~ith regard .to. 93 5
versus 4 5 to. 20 on the security, maybe/ The ques tio11-s .of 6
revi*ewing applications for changeover to increased* uranium 7
loading decrea~ed enrichment_ of fu:e1s*' woU:1a. come --~
8 MR. GOSSICK: Out of U~e operating reactor **branch, 9 probably, Stello, -woulqn't it?
10 .CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yep.
11 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: It woul,d seem to me it. would 12 be good_if there was just.somebody who is a contact point for 13 others.*
14 MR. LEWIS: So far, B_ill Ross has done this.
15 MR. GOSSICK: Bill Ross has done that?
16 MR. LEWIS: Yes, but that's more in the safeguards 17 area. But he has taken the initiative ,on*:thatt 18 MR. GOSSICK: I will talk to Ed C_ase' and see.
19 -COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: See if this isn't important 20 enough that there just out to be one person that you can g~
21 22 MR. WILLIAMSON: One of the recommendations coming 23 out of*the advisory group meeting was that the IAEA consider 24 holding a further speciai group, whether it be.an advisory 25 group or a meeting of consultants i t wasn't clear, to assist
36 1
countries that wanted to look into questions of regulation, 2
safety and-what have_ you with respect to research reactors 3
and the use of the low enriched fuels. - I assume that the 4
agency will accept that recommendation. We will *be scheduling*
5 a meeting of experts and I think it is very clear that.the 6
countries concerned will be looking to the U.S., and that means.
7 in this case the NRC, for some leadership in how you go about 8
making safety analysis for these new fuels and how you draft 9
regulations to conform to the new fueis, et cetera. I don't 10 :know how quickly the IA.EA will be moving on this, but I 11 anticipate we will be having a meeting probably within 6 months 12 to.year in this area. So I think some preparatory work will 13 probably be needed.
14 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: This is all terribly impor-15 tant~unfortunately there are artifical constraints* that 16 impede this job.
17 Who is handling this at DOE?
18 MR. LEWIS: The people involved are Sal Ceja (C-E-J~A) 19 in International Affai~s and Wade Ballard (B-A-L-L-A-R-D) in 20 Nuclear Energy.* Wade is 21 COMMISSI0NEFL GILINSKY: The research people aren't 22 involved in it?
23 MR. LEWIS: No, this is all within Thorne's.-- well, 24 International Affairs is separate, but within Thorne's area.
25 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: I would have thought that --
37 I
1 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.
7 r-1R. *LEWIS: Oh, the* uses o:f; .reactors, definitely
- 8. do.
9 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Yes, but John's research *empire
,10 in the lab~:stems towards the basic research. I guess it is 11 the non-biomedical basic research, physics, chemistry 12 COMMISSIONER GI.LINSKY: 'Well, is there some informal
. 13* group of someth1ng that pursues' this?
14
- MR. D.:::*H0YLEJ:1c:_, po*Jyo.u1:inean<J0.'ithin :DOE or ,otherwise?
15 There is a subgroup, cfhe::.NSC: .a:d hoc group on 16 nonproliferation which follows HEU matters. In fact,* :t chair 17 that group and it.has interagency representation including the 18 .NRC, I might add. We are*going to_ have a meeting on.Friday 19 to bring peopie up to speed of that group.
20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: WhO is our representative?"
21 MR. b.: :HOYLE: Jim Shea or one of his people has participating in that.
22 MR .. WILLIAMSON: Much of that same group, in turn, 23 overlaps the same group on nuclear export control. So a lot 24 of the same representatives are involved. So this gets cranked 25
.38 1
into that quite heavily.
2 CHAIRMAN.HENDRIE: Let's see, yoµ'a,re in touch with 3
'that group, that's.f.1.ne. You have a good reason then to have 4 . ' ' .
contact in Reacto:r:- Safeguards Branch or the security aspects' 5
are cover~d. I think it would b.e- usef1:1l to sort of bring on 6*
- poard. the saf~ty side . r~viewers .in NRR who*. have to deal with 7
applications to go o'ver *from the highly enriched .. ~fl*;w direction,-
8 MR. GOSSICK: I will taik with Ed and see*what he 9
wants.to set up *.
- 10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: -- the plate forms and so on and 11 get. a lead contact ~:there. I ',:!:tf~fils,,,iL;NRC could: . *do., ::particularly, 12
.work on. tfue,.,like, cqU:ld do an effective. job in reviewing.
13 amendments, or at least the first. few when they finally come 14 in, the reactors that will be coming in.attempting to do this 15 that that might encourage others to set*fo.rward* .and talk 16 to fuel suppliers.
17 Are all the research reactors contracting -- they 18 are having to contract in Eur9pe, I guess, for elements?
19 MR. LEWIS: No, well, the ones that are.,privately 20 funded, I think generally:~are, but those that could get their 21 funding through DOE are generally now still going through DOE 22 and DOE _,:is seting up Atomics, International to provide their 23 fuel supplies.
24 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Plate-type?
25 MR. LEWIS: Plate-type.
39 1
MR. D. HOYLE: On a cost-plus, fixed-fee basis.
2 Wel:l, actually they.would provide it, whereas before 3
they have*been' giving ~~finaricial grant toward the.procurement 4
of such fuel when U.S *. Nuclear and others were operating.
5 Now, they would simply just be providing the fuel~--
6*
COMMISSIONER GILINSKY:. We are sti_ll supporting 7
MR. D. HOYLE: *oh; yes. About .a dozen or something 8
like that. Ten, I think, something 8 or 10 which 'the University 9
of Missouri of one of them, University of Michigan.and so forth.
10 This fortunately gives us a little additional leverage in 11 trying to encourage the reactor*;operators to reduce enrichments, 12 and we are going to try to make maximum use of. that as w~ll.
13 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let's see, there is' an outfit in 14 Massachusetts that makes the 15 MR .. LEWIS: Yes, that's Texas Instruments.
16 That's also CPFF.
17 'CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: makes the HIFR f'(iel.
18 MR. LEWIS: Well, also they are going to production 19 for HFRB in Brookhaven.and ORR. Then again, there is no 20 commercial fabr'icators, they want to use higher uranium density 21 fuels but highly enriched. So they are going to Texas 22 Instrucment, but that's CPFF.
23 Of course, AI in California primarily makes ATR fuel 24 for the Naval facilities,and they*.are sort of branching in to 25 this research reactor thing as means to divert some of the
., 40 1
overhead costs.
2.
MR. D. HOYLE: But they made i t very clear to us, 3
although they were. totally unintereste~ in getting in to this 4
in a cominerical basis, that 'it was again, a very small
,5 potential profit ahd a very high equipment : investment*.
6 MR. WILLIAMSON: I might make one or two other quick 7
observations.
8 Irr the first place, with respect to safeguards and 9
security, to the extent that there were matters that were 10 either within the Executive Branch purview or in the combined 11 purview of the Executive Branch and the NRC, we have already 12 moved in ~everal cases, away from the use of contained U~235 13 as a standard that we would set towards effective kilograms 14 as a means of encouraging use of lower enrichments. I think 15 that's one possible solution to the problem for domestic lq appl{cati6n heie, as well.
17 MR. D. HOYLE: We'will, by the way, shortly be 18 requesting the NSC to interpret the Presidential..threshold 19 approval levels as being effective rather than contain kilograms 20 So that will encourage the use of lower enrichments.
21 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Let's see, a kilogram of 20 percent 22 MR. D. HOYLE: This only applies to above 20 percent.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: is zero effective kilograms?
24 MR. D. HOYLE: Right, right.
25 So even 70 percent, roughly, would be only a little
41
- more th~ri half, in terms, that means you could go ~wice 2
as much U-235.as you could 3
MR. WILLIAMSON: S.ix times the 4'5 percent, et cetera.
4 Secondly, .we have talked briefly to the IAEA and
- .. 5 to.the Austrians about the possibflity of a demonstration,
- 6 a foreign demonstration at the De~~sivor~d6rf Reactor.
7 That is ncit the only candid, but it is one for a fairly early 8 demonstration that these highe*:r:. weight percent f~els can be 9 used effectively. We do think that it is important to have 10 a fairly early demonstration.
11 MR. LEWIS: I think it is worth saying that from 12 a safety and license point of view that the intermediate 13 enrichment, reductions .either to 45 percent or in some c.ases 14 at 20, mean the introduction of existin~ technology. It is 15 used in ATR, it is used in HIFR, HFBR and so on, so it is not 16 totally new, but it is*now for the reactors involved. They 17 have to be assured of the safety and for many countries it is 18 a new technology for them.
19 MR. D. 'HOYLE: We also believe that there will 20 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: I don't think .there is that 21 much safety involved.
22 MR. LEWIS: I don't either.
23 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: If. you can run a 40 weight percent 24 UAL mix in aluminum with uranium fully enriched and drive it out 25 to high burnout, you sure don't look for much problem by taking
' ,, 42 1 the same metallurgical mix that on a 20 percent enrichment 2 and running tha~ out nntil the reactivity is run down and 3 you have to tuin the machine off and reload, becarise you just 4 will .have fewer fissions per cubic centimeter of that matrix 5 material for radiation damage ---
6 M*. LEWIS: But I .. have argued a *fact on* that b~sis 7 that yo,u probably 'don **t n~ed any demonstrations,
- big large 8 scale'demonstrations, full scale burnouts, but reactor 9 operators are more conservative. They want to 10 CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Ah, they talked to our licensing 11 people.
12 (Laughter) 13 MR. D. HOYLE: I might also add that we expect some 14 proposals for cooperation from the foreign fabric~tors, 15 perhaps ,from CEA as well, which is developing the carame*i fuel.
16 The limitations are largely as one would suspect in the 17 pr6prietari information area, but there might be exchanges of 18 sample and some irradiations and reactors of the respected countries. We are kind of open, in a way, for proposals _and 19 there seems to be .an interest in this area.
20 MR .. WILLIAMSON: There is one final thing which has 21 not been publicly announced which I think I can say here, and 22 that is we~hope to have an announcement, perhaps this week, 23 at the UN special session on disarmament of a program of 24 expanded cooperation in the nuclear field, modest program.
25
l 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 5
HEU; ~~ai~able~ w~ ~ill also haye ~ome'. carr6t~ to off~t 6
people as a positive encouragement' to 16~er enrichments~*
7 COMMISSIONER GILINSI<Y: And you said* t:,hat you
. ,8 may organize.a seminar at Argonne?
9 MR. LEWIS: Well,. there are two meetings that are 10 coming up tha~ are planned, one is primarily for fuel i1 .fabricators and for major .R&D organizations such as CEA and
' '
- I *
.12 .*
the like where we would lo'ok at, first of, all, generic.
13 problems in reduced enrichment designs, phy_sics and:
14 engineering, and secondly, try to get the manufacturers to 15 give* us as much information as they will on where they stand 16 on being able to manufacture this stu£f.
17 We had planned .to maybe organize such a thing in 18 . S~pte_mber or *October of this year, probably by invitation only, 19 ,but invite particularly the French, the Germans and the 20 Japanese. Those are the main categ9ries.
21 Then a broader meeting is planned probably next 22 year by IAEA of reactor operators on the broad subject of 23 upgrading and renewal of existing reactors and new reactors, 24 the problems there.* That will include case studies in 25 enrichment reduction. So there are those things coming up.
44 1
CHAIRMAN HENDRIE: Okay. Lee, if you would look 2
- in to the NRR licensing side so *that all of the NRC. group 3
otight to have interest in and~~rficipation in this so it 4
could be brought.for~ard and understand this effort ~nd the 5
usefulness of moving a~eid. with things like the sp~bific*case 6
now in hand, the Unive*rsity of Michigan, that would be .;ery 7
good.
8 I thank you very much for. coming, Dick~
9 COMMISSIONER GILINSKY: Thank you, that.was a very 10 nice briefing.
11 CHAIRMAN. HENDRIE: We appreciate it very much. It 12 was very informative and very helpful.
13 (Whereupon, the Commission took a brief recess at 14 10:45 then proceeded on to other business.)
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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