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Fusion Science and Technology
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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Hiromasa Ninomiya, Akio Kitsunezaki, Masatsugu Shimizu, Masaaki Kuriyama, JT-60 Team, Haruyuki Kimura, Hisato Kawashima, Kazuhiro Tsuzuki, Masayasu Sato, Nobuaki Isei, Yukitoshi Miura, Katsumichi Hoshino, Kensaku Kamiya, Toshihide Ogawa, Hiroaki Ogawa, Kengo Miyachi, JFT-2M Group, Satoshi Itoh, Naoaki Yoshida, Kazuaki Hanada, Kazuo Nakamura, Hideki Zushi, Mizuki Sakamoto, Eriko Jotaki, Makoto Hasegawa, TRIAM Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 42 | Number 1 | July 2002 | Pages 7-31
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A210
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Research activities of the Japanese tokamaks JT-60U, JFT-2M, and TRIAM-1M are described. The recent JT-60 program is focused on the establishment of a scientific basis of advanced steady-state operation. Plasma performance in transient and quasi steady states has been significantly improved, utilizing reversed shear and weak shear (high-p) ELMy H-modes characterized by both internal and edge transport barriers and high bootstrap current fractions. Development of each key issue for advanced steady-state operation has also been advanced. Advanced and basic research of JFT-2M has been performed to develop high-performance tokamak plasma as well as the structural material for a fusion reactor. Toroidal field ripple reduction with ferritic steel plates outside the vacuum vessel is successfully demonstrated. No adverse effects to the plasma were observed with poloidal fields inside the vacuum vessel (partial covering). Preparation is in progress for full-scale testing of the compatibility of the ferritic steel wall (full covering) with plasma. A heavy ion beam probe has been installed to study H-mode plasmas. Compact toroid (CT) injection experiments are performed, showing deep CT penetration into the core region of the H-mode. The TRIAM project has investigated steady-state operation and high-performance plasma of a tokamak with the high toroidal magnetic field superconducting tokamak. Four important contributions in the fields of fusion technology of superconducting tokamaks, steady-state operation, high-performance plasma, and startup of plasma current without the assistance of center solenoid coils have been achieved on TRIAM-1M, especially regarding steady-state operation by realization of a discharge for >3 h.