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Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
A. V. Gorshkov, S. V. Akhtyrskiy, I. S. Bel'bas, E. E. Mukhin, A. G. Razdobarin, S. Yu. Tolstyakov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 62 | Number 1 | July-August 2012 | Pages 104-109
Diagnostics | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials, Part A: Fusion Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A14120
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The metal mirrors for deflecting laser radiation in the divertor Thomson scattering system of ITER are found to be inapplicable due to high density of laser radiation on a mirror. This is caused by the short distance from the laser focus to the mirror surface. We report on investigations of the possibility to use dielectric mirrors and protective sapphire plates in a rotary unit. We study the laser damage thresholds of optical elements, which are supposed to be used in the laser input channel. These optical elements are the dielectric mirrors deposited on different substrates (quartz, sapphire, and single-crystal molybdenum) and the protecting sapphire plate. A number of sapphire samples were irradiated by a neutron flux up to 1019 n/cm2 (E > 100 keV) and annealed. Laser damage thresholds of the elements were measured at room temperature and at the ITER operating temperature of 150°C.A YAG:Nd laser operating with 10-Hz repetition rate was used in the experiments. The laser pulse parameters were 1064-nm wavelength, 16-ns duration, and 250 to 300 mJ of energy.The experiments have not identified any dependence of optical element damage threshold versus the number of laser pulses. No damage was observed after 105 laser pulses with energy density just 10% below the damage threshold level.The applicability of these optical elements in the divertor Thomson scattering system of ITER had been proven.