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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Kenji Tobita, Ryoji Hiwatari, Yoshiteru Sakamoto, Youji Someya, Nobuyuki Asakura, Hiroyasu Utoh, Yuya Miyoshi, Shinsuke Tokunaga, Yuki Homma, Satoshi Kakudate, Noriyoshi Nakajima, the Joint Special Design Team for Fusion DEMO
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 5 | July 2019 | Pages 372-383
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1600931
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper summarizes the evolution of Japanese DEMO design studies in a retrospective manner by highlighting efforts to resolve critical design issues on DEMO. Japan is currently working on the conceptual study of a steady-state DEMO (JA DEMO) with a major radius Rp of 8.5 m and fusion power Pfus of 1.5 to 2 GW based on water-cooled solid breeding blanket with pressurized water reactor water condition (290ºC to 325ºC, 15.5 MPa). Such a lower Pfus allows to find realistic design solutions for divertor heat removal. Recognizing that divertor heat removal is one of the most challenging issues on DEMO, the divertor design has been carried out in different approaches, including numerical divertor plasma simulation, magnetic configurations, heat sink design, etc. It is noteworthy that the latest divertor simulation led to a design window allowing divertor heat removal of the peak heat flux of <10 MW/m2. The breeding blanket (BB) design has been concentrated on simplification of the internal structure and pressure tightness of the BB casing against the in-box loss-of-coolant accident. Due to a large amount of radioactive waste generated in periodic replacement of in-vessel components, downsizing of waste-related facilities has come to be regarded as a significant design issue. A possible waste management for reducing temporary waste storage was proposed, and its impact on the plant layout was assessed.
