The Nuclear regulatory commission of the USA uses probabilistic risk assessment methods to assess the likelihood and consequences of severe reactor accidents in accordance with the code of federal regulations 10 CFR 50.109. Further barriers include the reactor pressure vessel, the concrete building structure containing the pressure vessel and abundant amounts of water that remove the heat from the nuclear reaction. That is, maintaining the integrity of the cladding is the first crucial containment for the radioactive material. The first barrier to protect the fuel is the hermetically sealed metallic cladding which envelops the pellets of uranium oxide. The main risk of operating a nuclear power plant is the release of radioactive elements into the environment, and for that reason, several barriers are constructed between the fuel containing the radioactive elements and the environment. The operation of NPP energy facilities do not emit greenhouse gases. Commercial nuclear power plants (NPP) are designed to be operated without significant effect on the public health and safety and effect on the environment. In the USA alone, the use of nuclear power prevented in 2015 the release of 564 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the environment. At least 13 countries use nuclear power to supply about a quarter of their electricity. Approximately 450 commercial nuclear power plants are used in 30 countries to produce low cost electricity. Nuclear power plants are one of the most reliable and cleaner ways of producing electricity. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The implementation of FeCrAl cladding is a near term solution to enhance the safety of the current fleet of commercial light water power reactors. Higher neutron absorption and tritium release effects can be minimized by design changes. Results show that FeCrAl has excellent corrosion resistance under normal operation conditions and FeCrAl is several orders of magnitude more resistant than zirconium alloys to degradation by superheated steam under accident conditions, generating less heat of oxidation and lower amount of combustible hydrogen gas. Extensive testing and evaluation is being conducted to determine the suitability of FeCrAl under normal operation conditions and under severe accident conditions. General electric, Oak ridge national laboratory, and their partners are proposing to replace zirconium alloy cladding in current commercial light water power reactors with an iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) cladding such as APMT or C26M. This accident tolerant fuel alternative should better tolerate loss of cooling in the core for a considerably longer time while maintaining or improving the fuel performance during normal operation conditions. GE Global Research, 1 Research Circle, Schenectady,Īfter a tsunami caused plant black out at Fukushima, followed by hydrogen explosions, the US Department of Energy partnered with fuel vendors to study safer alternatives to the current UO 2-zirconium alloy system.
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