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The busyness of the nuclear fuel supply chain
Ken Petersenpresident@ans.org
With all that is happening in the industry these days, the nuclear fuel supply chain is still a hot topic. The Russian assault in Ukraine continues to upend the “where” and “how” of attaining nuclear fuel—and it has also motivated U.S. legislators to act.
Two years into the Russian war with Ukraine, things are different. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, authorizing $700 million in funding to support production of high-assay low-enriched uranium in the United States. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy this January issued a $500 million request for proposals to stimulate new HALEU production. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 includes $2.7 billion in funding for new uranium enrichment production. This funding was diverted from the Civil Nuclear Credits program and will only be released if there is a ban on importing Russian uranium into the United States—which could happen by the time this column is published, as legislation that bans Russian uranium has passed the House as of this writing and is headed for the Senate. Also being considered is legislation that would sanction Russian uranium. Alternatively, the Biden-Harris administration may choose to ban Russian uranium without legislation in order to obtain access to the $2.7 billion in funding.
M. Nagata, Y. Kinugasa, T. Uyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 3 | April 1995 | Pages 387-390
Compact Torus (Field-Reversed Configuration, Spheromak) Concepts | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11947112
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A spheromak configuration consisting of bias flux surrounding a core region of closed flux surfaces has been successfully sustained in the Flux Amplification Compact Torus (FACT) device by DC/Coaxial helicity injection. In this experiment, the energy transfer efficiency is estimated to be about 30%. The relaxed configuration posseses a low q profile (1/3<q<1/2) whose shape implies that the current density is concentrated in the core and which is maintained by the process of MHD relaxation. The current conversion and rapid inward diffusion of the injected current is found to be significantly related to the n=1 helical deformation of the open field lines along the geometric axis. In this paper, we present some design parameters for the planned Helicity Injected Spherical Torus (HIST) which will permit a corresponding investigation to the above to be made for a tokamak.