PLENTIFUL ENERGY

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It is suspected that the lead corrosion problem was the main culprit in shortening the life of the Alfa-class submarines. A prototype Alfa-class was launched in 1972, but a coolant freezing accident destroyed the reactor and it was dismantled in 1974. Six additional of the Alfa-class were launched between 1977 and 1983. Eventually, four of seven Alfa-class submarines experienced reactor failures. [4-5] In 1982, for example, a steam generator failure leaked about two tons of lead-bismuth into the reactor compartment, damaging the reactor irreparably. Lead alloys will be considered as an option if a very high outlet temperature is required for specific advanced applications, always providing the corrosion problem is satisfactorily solved. However, for conventional power reactor applications, its disadvantages make it unlikely to replace sodium as the coolant of choice. 14.2.2 Helium Gas Gas-cooled fast reactors were considered in early days but abandoned in the late ‗70s. However, the interest in helium gas cooling has resurfaced in recent years. [2] Thermophysical properties of helium are also listed in Table 14-1. The specific heat of helium is about four times that of sodium, but the density is very low—five thousand times less. The volumetric heat capacity, therefore, is less by about three orders of magnitude. Even if helium is pressurized to 100 atmospheres, the coolant velocity would have to be increased by a factor of ten for the typical lattice design parameters used in sodium cooling. The helium coolant velocity required is in the 100 m/s range, introducing the risk of flow-induced vibration, and attention to this is necessary in the reactor‘s structural design. The thermal conductivity is very low—four hundred times less than that of sodium—so the heat transfer is poor even at high coolant velocity and the cladding surface needs to be roughened to increase the effective surface for heat transfer. Certainly, from a thermal-hydraulics point of view, helium is not a good coolant for the high specific power of fast reactors, and justification for its use would have to come from elsewhere. One rationale for considering a helium-cooled fast reactor stems from the fact that it could be a natural extension of thermal-spectrum hightemperature gas-cooled reactors. For thermal-spectrum reactors, graphite is employed as moderator and the large volume of graphite in all such reactor designs provides a passive heat sink lasting for a period of days in the event of loss of coolant, for example. For fast reactors, such a graphite heat sink is not possible; coolant must be available, and active safety systems have to be relied upon to shut down the reactor and remove the decay heat. For a high-pressure, high-velocity helium coolant system, loss of coolant flow and even loss of pressurization are credible possibilities. Even for protected (with scram) transients, in the fast reactor an active emergency cooling system might be required to prevent core melting. Anticipated transients without scram will result in core disruptive accidents. 305
In order to provide some buffer for the anticipated transients, new fuel types are being developed, that could provide some partial heat capacity, including cermettype fuel and alternate fuel configurations. [6] However, their irradiation performance characteristics have not yet been fully explored. 14.2.3 Sodium In addition to advantages in thermophysical properties, another unique characteristic of sodium as coolant is its compatibility with the metals used for the reactor structures and components. Radioactive corrosion products are not formed in any significant amounts, which, circulating and depositing around the system, would otherwise make access for maintenance difficult. Access for maintenance in the sodium-cooled system is easy and radiation exposures to plant personnel are expected to be very low. The noncorrosive coolant also implies reliable sodium component performance and improved plant availability. Experience in EBR-II has shown that components submerged in a sodium pool tend to exhibit a better reliability than similar components exposed to an argon or air atmosphere. Sodium has been used as coolant in all sixteen fast reactors that have been operated around the world, other than the NaK-cooled EBR-I and DFR, because of its excellent properties as a fast reactor coolant. Experience has been excellent, as will be discussed more in detail in Section 14.7. The only drawback of sodium is its chemical reactivity in air and water, an issue quite manageable without causing safety consequences, and this aspect has been discussed in detail in Section 7.12. In summary, sodium is likely to remain as the coolant of choice for future fast reactors. 14.3 Physics Principle of Breeding The principle underlying adequate breeding is the neutron economy available only in fast spectrum reactors. The fundamental parameter that gives the fast reactor superior breeding is the high value of the average number of neutrons emitted for each neutron absorbed by a fissile isotope, commonly designated as or eta value, in a fast neutron spectrum. The breeding ratio (BR) is conventionally defined as fissile production divided by fissile destruction over the fuel life, but to show its components it can be expressed alternatively in terms of the neutron balance written below. All the components are normalized to the neutron absorption in the fissile isotopes. BR = - 1- A- L- D, where number of neutrons emitted by fission in fissile isotopes, number of neutrons consumed by fission in fertile isotopes, 306
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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
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Further, as a metal, sodium does no
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to the boundaries and many leak fro
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is debatable, it remains our belief
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CHAPTER 6 IFR FUEL CHARACTERISTICS,
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To do this, an extraordinarily simp
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Further cementing the decision was
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the AEC, but the reactor operation
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hands-on access needed to accomplis
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temperature. However, a very substa
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It turned out that the high-plutoni
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In the column ―Pu content % heavy
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40 start-ups and shutdowns 5 15% ov
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During casting, a partial vacuum (1
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is in fact a new fuel. Plutonium-ba
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8. G. L. Hofman and L. C. Walters,
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characteristics necessary for this.
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exchangers, and the steam generator
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experiments, as mentioned; this has
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sufficient to allow radioactive rel
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In the IFR, this loss of the coolin
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Figure7- 2. Reactor outlet temperat
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for thermal expansion of heavy stru
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power to shut down power is basical
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criticality. The debris is in the f
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7.10.2 The EBR-I Partial Meltdown T
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7.11 Licensing Implications What ar
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The sodium flowing into the steam g
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[15] Provisions are also made to co
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disassembly comes, it is with a rea
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CHAPTER 8 THE PYROPROCESS In the ne
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EBR-II purposes, and it established
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valuable fuel constituents, uranium
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and materials and it had been renam
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The first operation is done in the
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into the receiver crucible. The hea
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In the final step, the pins are arr
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Spent Fuel Processed, kg effective
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products, highly radioactive and se
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its own bayonet-style partial inter
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If the bond sodium along with the s
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CHAPTER 9 THE BASIS OF THE ELECTROR
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Whether or not a given reaction can
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9.3 Kinetics of the Reactions Chemi
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The exponential exp((E f -E b )/RT)
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The electrorefining process brings
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cathode operation. Once the solutio
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Table 9-2. Measured data and calcul
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All four measurements show that eve
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The free energy of the reaction of
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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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Page 272 and 273: It is now known that the plutonium
Page 274 and 275: 12.8 Monitoring of Processes Always
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Page 282 and 283: 12.13 Summary In IFR technology the
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Page 292 and 293: for the backend of the fuel cycle,
Page 294 and 295: $/lb Uranium Price, $/lb U3O8 the f
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Page 300 and 301: Table 13-7. Summary Comparison of F
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Page 306 and 307: 13.6 System Aspects The previous se
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Page 310 and 311: 5. S. C. Chetal, ―India‘s Fast
Page 312 and 313: capacity over this century, in a sy
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Page 322 and 323: Table 14-3. Effects of fuel pin dia
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Page 334 and 335: 14.7 Worldwide Fast Reactor Experie
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Page 340 and 341: 14.9 How to Deploy Pyroprocessing P
Page 342 and 343: construction projects. They may see
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Page 346: 5. Federation of American Scientist
Page 349 and 350: Supporting the reactor design and c
Page 352 and 353: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In beginning this
Page 354 and 355: APPENDIX A DETAILED EXPLANATION OF
Page 356 and 357: The actinide metals (uranium, pluto
Page 358 and 359: As noted above, the interactions ri
Page 360 and 361: 3. Equilibrium coefficients give th
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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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