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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
A. Krämer-Flecken
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 2 | February 2012 | Pages 376-383
Diagnostics | Proceedings of the Tenth Carolus Magnus Summer School on Plasma and Fusion Energy Physics | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13524
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The measurement of plasma quantities is a difficult task since the plasma cannot be treated like normal material. Any measurement of plasma quantities with solid probes will yield interactions with the plasma and causes a perturbation of the measured quantity. Inside a hot plasma those methods are not applicable, since they lead to a disruption of the discharge. In addition microwave diagnostics have no big needs in terms of space requirements if coupled to a plasma. Mirrors needed for the most optical diagnostics will become a problem due to erosion and deposition of the mirror surfaces in future fusion devices as ITER and DEMO. Also in this sense microwave diagnostics are less demanding. However, this puts some pressure on a future generation of scientist to develop new methods to replace optical based diagnostics by those using microwaves to probe the plasma.
