Flex-time PhD researcher Grant Minor, a senior engineer at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, holds a CANDU fuel bundle replica
Flex-time PhD researcher Grant Minor, a senior engineer at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, holds a CANDU fuel bundle replica Researchers at the University of Toronto are collaborating with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) to optimize the design and layout of a new plant for processing used nuclear fuel packages. By leveraging a technique known as multidisciplinary design optimization, the project aims to further enhance Canada's long-term management of used nuclear fuel. "The Used Fuel Packaging Plant will be the first of its kind in Canada," says Grant Minor, a senior engineer at NWMO and a flex-time PhD candidate in the lab of Kamran Behdinan, a professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. "It is a huge infrastructure investment for Canada." At present, 19 Canadian deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactors provide about 15 per cent of Canada's electricity. The proportion is even higher in Ontario, which is home to three out of Canada's four operating nuclear plants and currently sources 56 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power. Canada's nuclear waste management plan, called Adaptive Phased Management, is being implemented by the NWMO, a not-for-profit organization formed in 2002 through the federal government's Nuclear Fuel Waste Act. The organization is responsible for designing and implementing Canada's plan for the safe long-term management. CANDU reactors are fuelled by a reaction using natural uranium, which is moderated by deuterium, a constituent of heavy water.
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