GNF nuclear reactor fuel innovation approved by NRC
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Global Nuclear Fuel’s (GNF) latest innovation for boiling water nuclear reactors (BWR). GNF is a joint venture with GE (NYSE: GE), Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and Toshiba Corp.
NSF channels are designed to reduce channel bow and control rod blade interference, which reduces the need for operational testing. It was built with a proprietary combination of zirconium, niobium, tin and iron to be resistant to fluence gradient bow and shadow corrosion induced bow.
NSF channels were first made available in lead use assemblies in 2002. Since then, more than 300 NSF channels have been loaded into BWR plants. The channel material is available in reload quantities starting with outages in spring 2016. NSF will be standard on GNF3 bundles, which are slated for full reloads in 2018.