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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Hartmut Zohm
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 2 | October 2010 | Pages 613-624
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-06
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A set of simple scaling relations is derived to assess the impact of plasma physics and technology assumptions on the design of a DEMO tokamak fusion reactor. At the same time, it is shown that by postulating that the plasma physics assumptions are consistent with those that can be reliably reached in present-day experiments and that the recirculating power is reasonably low, a tokamak DEMO operating with steady-state plasma operation is of large size, comparable to a reactor - suggesting that the study of pulsed options should receive more attention in the future. The scaling relations reproduce well the results from a number of previous studies, indicating that they are particularly well suited for future parametric scoping studies. From the relations derived, it also follows that the areas in which future progress will have a particularly large impact on the attractiveness of DEMO are the limit in plasma physics and in technology the magnetic field strength Bt and the wall-plug efficiency CD of the systems to drive noninductive current.