09/04/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/04/2024 11:06
The Department of Energy awarded $17 million on August 30 for 16 experiment and analysis projects expected to yield criticality data that will assist the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in licensing and regulating high-assay low-enriched uranium and the fuel infrastructure-including packaging and transportation containers-required to demonstrate and deploy HALEU-fueled advanced nuclear reactors. Project teams include six national laboratories taking lead roles in partnership with other labs, universities, and multiple industry partners.
A critical part of HALEU availability: The joint DOE and NRC Criticality Safety for Commercial-Scale HALEU for Fuel Cycle and Transportation project falls under the DOE's HALEU Availability Program, which supports the availability of HALEU for civilian domestic research, development, demonstration, and commercial use. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided $700 million to the HALEU Availability Program, and up to $60 million is made available for HALEU criticality benchmarking.
"Many advanced reactor developers require HALEU to achieve smaller designs, longer operating cycles, and increased efficiencies over existing technologies," said acting assistant secretary for nuclear energy Michael Goff. "The data collected from these projects will support efforts to ensure HALEU infrastructure is licensed and regulated in time for reactor demonstrations and deployments"
The DOE plans to issue two more calls for criticality benchmarking proposals. The second call is planned for early 2025.
The projects: The projects announced for funding will cover five topic areas: (1) uranium hexafluoride transportation with moderator exclusion, (2) 10-20 percent enrichment gap, (3) nonfissile material validation, (4) fissile salts, and (5) advanced moderator nuclear data. According to the DOE, the publicly available data developed from these projects could help the nuclear industry develop new and novel solutions to address data gaps.
The 16 projects awarded are listed below, with the lead in bold. More information is available online.