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NN Asks: What hurdles stand in the way of nuclear power’s global expansion?
Jake Jurewicz
Nuclear technology is mature. It provides firm power at scale with minimal externalities and has done so for decades. The core problem isn’t about the technology—it is how the plants are built. Nuclear construction has a well-documented history of cost and schedule overruns. Previous nuclear plants often spent more than twice what was first budgeted, making nuclear among the power technologies with the largest average cost overruns worldwide.
Recent projects illustrate how severe the problem can be. In South Carolina, the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion saw projected costs rise from roughly $10 billion to more than $25 billion before the project was abandoned in 2017, by which time more than $9 billion had already been spent and customers were stuck paying for a site they have yet to benefit from.
A. Itakura et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 300-302
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A670
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fluctuation of electron density is observed by using a microwave reflectometry in the central cell of GAMMA 10 tandem mirror. An ultrashort-pulse train, whose pulse width is 65 ps, is transmitted into the plasma in the ordinary-wave mode and reflected at the cut-off layer. The reflected wave is detected by the receiving system, and its time-of-flight, i.e., round trip time, is measured. Fluctuation of the time-of-flight is fluctuation of the cutoff layer and it means density fluctuation. The pulse has a broad frequency spectrum, so each frequency component is reflected at different layer corresponding to its frequency. The frequency range of the receiving system is 7 to 11 GHz, and cut-off density ranges 0.61 to 1.5 × 1018 m-3. Density on the central axis of the plasma is about 2 × 1018 m-3. Radial intensity distribution of the fluctuation is observed without any perturbation. Frequency of the fluctuation is around several kHz.
