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Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) is a decommissioned research reactor and U.S. National Historic Landmark located in the desert about 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Arco, Idaho. It was the world's first breeder reactor. At 1:50 p.m. on December 20, 1951, it became one of the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plants when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs. EBR-I subsequently generated sufficient electricity to power its building, and continued to be used for experimental purposes until it was decommissioned in 1964. The museum is open for visitors from late May until early September.
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. Historically, the lab has been involved with nuclear research, although the laboratory does other research as well. Much of current knowledge about how nuclear reactors behave and misbehave was discovered at what is now Idaho National Laboratory. John Grossenbacher, former INL director, said, "The history of nuclear energy for peaceful application has principally been written in Idaho".
The integral fast reactor (IFR), originally the advancedliquid-metal reactor (ALMR), is a design for a nuclear reactor using fast neutrons and no neutron moderator. IFRs can breed more fuel and are distinguished by a nuclear fuel cycle that uses reprocessing via electrorefining at the reactor site.
A molten-salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a mixture of molten salt with a fissile material.
Columbia Generating Station is a nuclear commercial energy facility located on the Hanford Site, 10 miles (16 km) north of Richland, Washington. It is owned and operated by Energy Northwest, a Washington state, not-for-profit joint operating agency. Licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1983, Columbia first produced electricity in May 1984, and entered commercial operation in December 1984.
Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) was a sodium-cooled fast reactor designed, built and operated by Argonne National Laboratory at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. It was shut down in 1994. Custody of the reactor was transferred to Idaho National Laboratory after its founding in 2005.
A sodium-cooled fast reactor is a fast neutron reactor cooled by liquid sodium.
In the United States, nuclear power is provided by 94 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 97 gigawatts (GW), with 63 pressurized water reactors and 31 boiling water reactors. In 2019, they produced a total of 809.41 terawatt-hours of electricity, which accounted for 20% of the nation's total electric energy generation. In 2018, nuclear comprised nearly 50 percent of US emission-free energy generation.
A Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) is a specific proposed generation IV very-high-temperature reactor (VHTR) that could be coupled to a neighboring hydrogen production facility. It could also produce electricity and supply process heat. Up to 30% of this heat could be used to produce hydrogen via high-temperature electrolysis significantly reducing the cost of the process. The envisioned reactor design is helium-cooled, using graphite-moderated thermal neutrons, and TRISO fueled.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, that previously produced enriched uranium, including highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the U.S. nuclear weapons program and Navy nuclear propulsion; in later years, it produced low-enriched uranium for fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The site never hosted an operating nuclear reactor.
PRISM is a nuclear power plant design by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH).
TerraPower is an American nuclear reactor design and development engineering company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. TerraPower is developing a class of nuclear fast reactors termed traveling wave reactors (TWR).
Centrus Energy Corp. is an American company that supplies nuclear fuel for use in nuclear power plants and works to develop and deploy advanced centrifuge technology to produce enriched uranium for commercial and government uses, including for national security.
The Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) is an agency of the United States Department of Energy which promotes nuclear power as a resource capable of meeting the energy, environmental, and national security needs of the United States by resolving technical and regulatory barriers through research, development, and demonstration.
RELAP5-3D is a simulation tool that allows users to model the coupled behavior of the reactor coolant system and the core for various operational transients and postulated accidents that might occur in a nuclear reactor. RELAP5-3D can be used for reactor safety analysis, reactor design, simulator training of operators, and as an educational tool by universities. RELAP5-3D was developed at Idaho National Laboratory to address the pressing need for reactor safety analysis and continues to be developed through the United States Department of Energy and the International RELAP5 Users Group (IRUG) with over $3 million invested annually. The code is distributed through INL's Technology Deployment Office and is licensed to numerous universities, governments, and corporations worldwide.
The Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) is an air-cooled, graphite moderated, thermal spectrum test nuclear reactor designed to test reactor fuels and structural materials. Constructed in 1958, and operated from 1959 until 1994, TREAT was built to conduct transient reactor tests where the test material is subjected to neutron pulses that can simulate conditions ranging from mild transients to reactor accidents. TREAT was designed by Argonne National Laboratory, and is located at the Idaho National Laboratory. Since original construction, the facility had additions or systems upgrades in 1963, 1972, 1982, and 1988. The 1988 addition was extensive, and included upgrades of most of the instrumentation and control systems.
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was a project by the U.S. Department of Energy to build a fast-neutron test reactor by 2026. Funding for the project was scrapped in 2022
Project Pele is a project of the US Department of Defense to build a deployable nuclear power reactor for use in United States Armed Forces remote operating bases.
A nuclear microreactor is a plug-and-play type of nuclear reactor which can be easily assembled and transported by road, rail or air. Microreactors are 100 to 1,000 times smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, and range in capacity from 1 to 20 megawatts, compared to 20 to 300 megawatts for small modular reactors (SMRs). Due to their size, they can be deployed to locations such as isolated military bases or communities affected by natural disasters. It can operate as part of the grid, independent of the grid, or as part of a small grid for electricity generation and heat treatment. They are designed to provide resilient, non-carbon emitting, and independent power in challenging environments. The nuclear fuel source for the majority of the designs is "High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium", or HALEU.
Oklo Inc. is an advanced nuclear technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Founded in 2013 by Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, both graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the company designs compact fast reactors with the aim of providing clean, safe, and affordable energy. Its chairman is OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.
References
- ↑ Daniel Oberhaus (February 27, 2020), "Recycled Nuclear Waste Will Power a New Reactor", Wired
- 1 2 3 Sonal Patel (February 20, 2020), "Exclusive: Why Oklo's Demonstration of HALEU Could Be Groundbreaking for New Nuclear", Power (magazine), Rockville, Maryland: Wright's Media
- ↑ "US Idaho Lab to provide Oklo micro-reactor with access to HALEU fuel", Nuclear Engineering International, NS Media Group Ltd, 25 February 2020
- ↑ Nathanael Johnson (February 20, 2020), "The power plant of the future could run on nuclear waste", Grist
- ↑ INL selects Oklo Inc. for opportunity to demonstrate reuse of fuel material (press release), Idaho National Laboratory, February 19, 2020
- ↑ Environmental Assessment Completed for Use of DOE-Owned High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium Stored at Idaho National Laboratory (press release), Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, January 17, 2019
- 1 2 Oklo Inc. (December 17, 2019). "Safety case and external hazards" (PDF)– via NRC website.
- ↑ LASSITER, JOSEPH B. (2017). "UPower Technologies Inc. Case # 9-816-054". Harvard Business School.
- ↑ "NRC Denies Oklo Combined License Application for Lack of Information" (PDF). Nuclear Regulatory Commission.