LEU for U.S. tritium: DoE plans

Forum Contacts RSS		RUSSIAN

AtomInfo.Ru, PUBLISHED 03.12.2014

In the near to medium term, the Department of Energy sees three sources of obtaining the LEU for the tritium producing. In fact, they are all somehow tied to stocks.

The TVA company TVA, the tritium producer, has a valid contract with USEC (its new name is Centrus), under which the latter undertook to supply the LEU for these purposes until mid-2015 financial year. It is obvious that supplies under this contract are provided now from the USEC inventory.

The second source of the non-obligated LEU is the reserves formed the department in a series of exchanges of the quantities of uranium, initiated in May 2012. The department assured that in the the result of those swap operations it had accumulated a reserve of LEU sufficient for 15 years to produce tritium in a single reactor.

Finally, the third source can be the government program "Mixed Oxide Backup LEU Inventory Project", which was supposed the dilution of some HEU for the needs of the MOX fuel production. Under this program the department accumulated some non-obligated LEU and it can be used for tritium production for six years.

After analyzing all available on the topic of the DoE documents, the GAO auditors amounted own view about stocks of the non-obligated LEU (see figure below). The opinion of the auditors were more pessimistic than the opinions of DoE, They said that the available LEU is enough to ensure the production of tritium till 2030.

The forecast on the assumption that tritium is produced in a single reactor.
Click the left mouse button to view.

However, this forecast may be too optimistic if the needs of the U.S. military in tritium will be increased and the capabilities of a single reactor would be enough. In this scenario, the inventory of the non-obligated LEU in the United States will end in mid-20s.

It should be added that American experts are still unable to resolve the leakage of tritium from TPBAR rods, in which the tritium is produced. Therefore, the production of tritium for military needs in the United States still has not reached its targets. In this regard, one cannot exclude the assumption that the Americans will have to joint the second reactor to the tritium program.

Now the tritium production is performed on the unit 1 of the Watts Bar NPP. The second reactor, which can be connected to the program, one means one of the units of the Sequoyah NPP.

Topics: NFC, USA, Opinions

Other news:

Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanization approved the EIA Report of Akkuyu NPP

Akkuyu nuclear power plant in province of Mersin will be the first nuclear power plant in territory of the Republic of Turkey.

Fuel loading completed on Rostov-3

The completion of the unit is going ahead of schedule.

Russia and Iran broaden the cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy

Contract for construction of two power units of Bushehr Phase II was signed.

Hero of the day

Anatoly Zrodnikov: everything in ideology starts with definitions

Light metal in fast reactor is ideal as coolant, but when it contacts with air or water, famous problems arise. But heavy metal has very beautiful and very important property.

INTERVIEW

Nuclear Veterans for the Future
Whom should we call veterans? It is a good question. At present, we are shifting the center of gravity to persons being prepared for retirement. They still have powder in the powder-horns, they worked under market conditions, and we are going to involve them in the veteran movement.

OPINION

Falling Wednesday
Start of the third block of Olkiluoto NPP is already delayed by more than five years, and the delay will only increase.