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7.11 Licensing Implications What are the implications of all this in licensing? The prescriptive general design criteria codified in 10CFR Part 50 [11] were applied to licensing of the current LWRs, and with modification, the same approach was used in licensing of the Fast Flux Test Facility and the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project. However, when the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor program incorporated inherent passive safety in the early 1990s it wasn‘t clear how to take credit for such inherent safety features. The traditional approach for redundancy and diversity in engineered safety systems and severe accident mitigation systems were recommended by NRC. [12] There have been improvements in the regulatory process in recent years in the form of an increased emphasis on risk informed decision-making. Probabilistic risk assessment is now used throughout design, safety assessment, licensing and operation. All operating nuclear power plants are now required to have a probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) of both internal and external events, and probabilistic insights are now used in some aspects of operation and regulation. The NRC is now developing a risk-informed, performance-based alternative to 10CFR Part 50 to be used in licensing of future advanced nuclear power plants [13]. The approach is based on the NRC‘s safety goals policy [14] but still on fundamental safety principles such as defense-in-depth and safety margins. It combines both probabilistic and deterministic (calculation of accident sequences, generally by computer codes) elements. It is technology-independent, with technology-specific requirements for particular designs. Under the new regulatory framework, a probabilistic risk assessment would be an integral part of the design process and safety assessment, and be given a fundamental role in the licensing process. Deterministic criteria and multiple lines of defense against radioactive release would continue to be required. Under this approach, a probabilistic analysis would be used to establish the event sequences to be considered in the licensing process and to classify equipment as to its safety significance. The selected events, called Licensing Basis Events (LBEs), would be analyzed deterministically to demonstrate the conservatism of the probabilistic analysis. The allowable consequences of an event would be matched quantitatively to its frequency. This evolving risk-informed regulatory framework will recognize the benefits of inherent passive safety in a concrete, quantitative way. Probabilistic analysis will be central to demonstrating the effectiveness of passive safety features. As mentioned previously, in licensing of sodium-cooled fast reactors to date, a great deal of attention was focused on beyond-design-basis events that lead to severe consequences. Probabilistic analysis affords the opportunity to show quantitatively that such events may have a frequency below the lower limit for consideration as LBEs (the current proposal is a frequency less than 159
10 -7 per reactor-year); nevertheless, defense-in-depth considerations may still require mitigation features such as low-leakage containment. In the context of inherent passive safety, the desirability of having negative sodium void reactivity has sometimes been raised as a goal for future fast reactors. In Russia, the regulatory criteria include such a clause. BN-600 has negative sodium void reactivity due to highly enriched uranium fueling and this property is a natural result, but the same goal has been adopted for the design of BN-800. This does require some spoiling of core geometry (non-optimum core dimensions to enhance neutron leakage). In the CRBR licensing, the positive sodium void reactivity played a key role in the analysis of the loss-of-flow without scram leading to a core disruptive accident. However, if the reactor is designed to accommodate such an event without coolant boiling, the positive sodium void reactivity in itself has no significance. What is important is that the overall temperature reactivity coefficient and the power reactivity coefficient, including all reactivity feedbacks— fuel, coolant, structural, etc.—remain negative over the full range of powers. 7.12 Sodium Reaction with Air and Water 7.12.1 Sodium-Water Reaction The most important concern arising from sodium itself is its high chemical reactivity. It reacts violently with water and it burns in air. Compared to the other alkali metals, sodium is more reactive than lithium and less so than potassium. High chemical reactivity means that in nature it is found only as a compound. Sodium reacts exothermically with water: small pea-sized pieces will bounce around the surface of the water until they are consumed by it; large pieces will explode. The reaction with water produces caustic sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas, which can be ignited by the heat produced by the reaction. Because of this, contact of sodium with water or steam in the steam generator system design must be avoided. One very conservative approach very successfully demonstrated in EBR-II assures that the barrier between sodium and water is very reliable. The steam generator tubing is made straight and double-walled. The EBR-II steam generators of this design operated without a single tube leak for their entire thirty-year life. Although early fast reactors experienced some isolated steam generator problems primarily associated with welding techniques used for dissimilar metals, fast reactor steam generators in general have been reliable. Double-walled tubing has not been the norm. Sodium itself (unlike its reaction products) is completely compatible with structural materials, so no corrosion products accumulate in the crevices of the shell side of the tubes, a phenomenon that has plagued LWR steam generators. 160
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PLENTIFUL ENERGY The Story of the I
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Copyright © 2011 Charles E. Till a
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CONTENTS FOREWORD .................
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CHAPTER 10 APPLICATION OF PYROPROCE
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FOREWORD On a breezy December day i
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CHAPTER 1 ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATO
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even now is straining the limits of
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with events and time. Till saw the
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it, I saw how a national laboratory
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Figure 1-2. West stands of the Stag
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development of nuclear power for ci
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depended on U.S. ability to maintai
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construction funding kept increasin
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faced a nightmarish combination of
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concept in the next decade.) In sti
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was based on EBR-I experience, but
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Figure 1-9. Experimental Breeder Re
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Figure 1-11. Rendering of the EBR-I
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performance. But the decision had b
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its shakedown in early years it jus
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sense primarily a commercial power
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without electrical generation, the
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Its purpose was to demonstrate the
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of each period, which the managemen
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CHAPTER 2 THE INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR
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A line had been pursued that the re
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The IFR refining process also produ
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director of Argonne a year or two b
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eporting on nuclear power developme
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A few weeks later, the mid-term ele
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2.6 Summary In late 1983, the line
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Argonne would be. My Ph.D. at Imper
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I had worked at the United Kingdom
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hadn‘t bothered us with it. But t
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But I had gone over and over the on
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laboratories.‖ Incidentally, late
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Argonne by this time was one of sev
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3.1.2 Life at the Laboratory in the
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An anecdote: In the cooperative arr
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Cycle Facility‖ went. We pushed i
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(LMFBR), which assumed a very rapid
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the pool was a settled issue; it wa
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During the early stage of the IFR p
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scientific work, not on non-essenti
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e generally held, even as facts inc
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cf per day from Canada via pipeline
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serious, and it is made more seriou
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global economy. The LWR, and the Ad
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supply 11%, and one, the world‘s
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Fatih Birol, has recently been quot
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gas production of little use in the
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expenditures during a decade starti
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thousand tonnes in one large increm
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But the principal line of developme
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Tar sands and oil shale recovery ar
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14. W. H. Ziegler, C. J. Campbell,
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Argonne had been a part of the deve
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Breaches or holes in the fuel cladd
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waste. For efficiency in uranium us
Page 120 and 121: Further, as a metal, sodium does no
Page 122 and 123: to the boundaries and many leak fro
Page 124 and 125: is debatable, it remains our belief
Page 126 and 127: CHAPTER 6 IFR FUEL CHARACTERISTICS,
Page 128 and 129: To do this, an extraordinarily simp
Page 130 and 131: Further cementing the decision was
Page 132 and 133: the AEC, but the reactor operation
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Page 136 and 137: temperature. However, a very substa
Page 138 and 139: It turned out that the high-plutoni
Page 140 and 141: In the column ―Pu content % heavy
Page 142 and 143: 40 start-ups and shutdowns 5 15% ov
Page 144 and 145: During casting, a partial vacuum (1
Page 146 and 147: is in fact a new fuel. Plutonium-ba
Page 148 and 149: 8. G. L. Hofman and L. C. Walters,
Page 150 and 151: characteristics necessary for this.
Page 152 and 153: exchangers, and the steam generator
Page 154 and 155: experiments, as mentioned; this has
Page 156 and 157: sufficient to allow radioactive rel
Page 158 and 159: In the IFR, this loss of the coolin
Page 160 and 161: Figure7- 2. Reactor outlet temperat
Page 162 and 163: for thermal expansion of heavy stru
Page 164 and 165: power to shut down power is basical
Page 166 and 167: criticality. The debris is in the f
Page 168 and 169: 7.10.2 The EBR-I Partial Meltdown T
Page 172 and 173: The sodium flowing into the steam g
Page 174 and 175: [15] Provisions are also made to co
Page 176 and 177: disassembly comes, it is with a rea
Page 178 and 179: CHAPTER 8 THE PYROPROCESS In the ne
Page 180 and 181: EBR-II purposes, and it established
Page 182 and 183: valuable fuel constituents, uranium
Page 184 and 185: and materials and it had been renam
Page 186 and 187: The first operation is done in the
Page 188 and 189: into the receiver crucible. The hea
Page 190 and 191: In the final step, the pins are arr
Page 192 and 193: Spent Fuel Processed, kg effective
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Page 196 and 197: its own bayonet-style partial inter
Page 198 and 199: If the bond sodium along with the s
Page 200 and 201: CHAPTER 9 THE BASIS OF THE ELECTROR
Page 202 and 203: Whether or not a given reaction can
Page 204 and 205: 9.3 Kinetics of the Reactions Chemi
Page 206 and 207: The exponential exp((E f -E b )/RT)
Page 208 and 209: The electrorefining process brings
Page 210 and 211: cathode operation. Once the solutio
Page 212 and 213: Table 9-2. Measured data and calcul
Page 214 and 215: All four measurements show that eve
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Page 218 and 219: 2. At an actinide chloride ratio of
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CHAPTER 10 APPLICATION OF PYROPROCE
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10.2 Electrolytic Reduction Step 10
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The pyrochemical process simply sup
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Figure 10-1. Electrolytic reduction
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The distribution of fuel constituen
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an electrorefiner with a 5001,000 k
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aqueous reprocessing plant. The eco
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Li metal at the cathode. Lithium me
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4. D. W. Dees and J. P. Ackerman,
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Our intent for the IFR technology w
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dose to any member of the public mu
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IFR process, as we shall see, does
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Relative Radiological Toxicity uran
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doses from Tc-99 and I-129 equilibr
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Fraction of Initial Actinide, % pro
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long-lived fission products and tra
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to decay to the point where they co
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References 1. ―Nuclear Waste Poli
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12.1 Introduction Assessment of a p
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History provides empirical evidence
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program offered nations help with n
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Other nations are recycling their s
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uranium-233 cycle has been half-hea
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electrorefiner salt. And this, of c
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those concentrations in making the
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chance of ―pre-ignition‖ leadin
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It is now known that the plutonium
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12.8 Monitoring of Processes Always
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[18] In it he shows that with a spo
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Such a system tracks the quantity a
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weapons grade plutonium. Levels of
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12.13 Summary In IFR technology the
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12. T. P. McLaughlin, et al., ―A
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The earliest fast reactors designed
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India, too, has successfully operat
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levels, actually higher than the di
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for the backend of the fuel cycle,
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$/lb Uranium Price, $/lb U3O8 the f
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the once-through fuel cycle. Howeve
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$/kg 1200 1000 $1000/kg Rep Cost Pu
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Table 13-7. Summary Comparison of F
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fabrication. This, along with a low
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Fissile Cost, $/gm-fissile Fuel Cyc
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13.6 System Aspects The previous se
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waste streams have no long-term dec
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5. S. C. Chetal, ―India‘s Fast
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capacity over this century, in a sy
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thermal properties of NaK—the boi
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It is suspected that the lead corro
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Neutron Yield, Eta Value A = number
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to maintain a hard spectrum, the fu
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Table 14-3. Effects of fuel pin dia
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Fuel Volume Fraction have a large e
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neutron leakages from the core are
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like breeding, does increase such d
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substantial advantage to start with
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Doubling Time, yrs the reactivity c
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14.7 Worldwide Fast Reactor Experie
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limit to its life. The ingenuity of
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Nuclear Capacity, GWe the replaceme
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14.9 How to Deploy Pyroprocessing P
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construction projects. They may see
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inferior to sodium in their thermal
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5. Federation of American Scientist
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Supporting the reactor design and c
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In beginning this
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APPENDIX A DETAILED EXPLANATION OF
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The actinide metals (uranium, pluto
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As noted above, the interactions ri
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3. Equilibrium coefficients give th
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ion is created at the anode. Bulk t
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proceed spontaneously. If the magni
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product chlorides are highly stable
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increases with increasing temperatu
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Equilibrium in a chemical system is
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Exp(-ΔG o /RT) = [ U / Pu ] [ U /
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―in solution.‖ More Pu added to
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appropriate values are used for the
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A.9.5 The Second Cathode Regime: On
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in the real world. Uranium dendrite
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This is the significant number. The
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For those who are curious, the elec
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of concentration of uranium chlorid
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agreement with the measured ratio w
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eference 7. The important calculati
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as well. The numbers were obtained
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Run3: Plutonium isn’t, Uranium is
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The final actinide chloride ratios
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values of several of the constants
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HCDA HFEF HM HWR HTR IAEA ICRP IEA
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. CHARLES E. TI
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