W. A. "Art" Wharton is the business area president at Studsvik Scandpower Group, which provides nuclear engineering software and calculational methods to operating plants globally. An active member of the American Nuclear Society since 2004, Wharton most recently served two terms on the ANS Board of Directors and Executive Committee as treasurer of the Society. Multiple market forces on nuclear fuel have arisen seemingly at the same time since the Russian war in Ukraine started. Accident tolerant fuels (ATF), lead test rods, and lead test assemblies have had their first shot in real operating conditions, in recent cycles. But the popularity of their so-called accident tolerance has nothing to do with accidents, since any practical nuclear professional knows that the safety of nuclear energy is already higher than that of any other electricity generation source. The popularity comes down to fuel performance. Are we on the cusp of a revolution in nuclear fuel performance under the guise of accident tolerance? For pressurized water reactors, the design space for low leakage loading patterns with a maximum 4.95 percent uranium enrichment has been consistent for decades. The fuel cycle was in an equilibrium of sorts, with the exception of commodity price fluctuations. It allowed for demonstration of consistent margins to enable uprates and the slow evolutionary progression of cladding fuel performance.
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