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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
D.R. Cohn, L. Bromberg, R.J. Leclaire, R.E. Potok, D.L. Jassby
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1111-1116
Nuclear Technology Experiments and Facilities | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24881
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We discuss a super high field mode of tokamak operation that uses ohmic heating or near ohmic heating to ignition. This approach could also provide high values of nτe, increasing the margin of ignition in deuterium-tritium plasmas, and opening up the possibility of some type of advanced fuel operation. D-He3 operation might be possible if high enough values of β (β ≃ .09) can be obtained. The super high field mode of operation uses very high values of B2a, where B is the magnetic field and o is the minor radius (B2a > 100 T2m). We analyze copper magnet devices with major radii from 1.7 to 3.0 meters. Minimizing or eliminating the need for auxiliary heating has the potential advantages of reducing uncertainty in extrapolating the energy confinement time of current tokamak devices, and reducing engineering problems associated with large auxiliary heating requirements. It may be possible to heat relatively short pulse, inertially cooled tokamaks to ignition with ohmic power alone. However, there may be advantages in using a very small amount of auxiliary power (less than the ohmic heating power) to boost the ohmic heating and provide a faster start-up, especially in relatively compact devices.