Kacey Roberts
General Electric’s research-focused arm is expected to secure $6.4 million in funding from a Department of Energy unit to work on a nuclear fuel reprocessing advancement initiative.
The company said Wednesday its researchers will collaborate with GE Hitachi Nuclear, Sandia National Laboratories, Orano and Lumitron Technologies to develop the Monochromatic Assays Yielding Enhanced Reliability technology.
The MAYER project’s objective is to enable real-time tracking and measurement of a plant’s nuclear inventory to save time from the need to shut down fuel reprocessing operators to do a full inventory.
Bogdan Neculaes, the project’s leader and a Principal Scientist at GE Research, said the tech could potentially save facility operators hundreds of millions of dollars from reduced downtime annually.
The funding will be covered by Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy as MAYER supports ARPA-E’s Converting Used Nuclear Fuel Radioisotopes into Energy program, which is an effort focused on significantly reducing the disposal impact of spent nuclear fuel.
