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Fukiushima Daiichi: 10 years on
The Fukushima Daiichi site before the accident. All images are provided courtesy of TEPCO unless noted otherwise.
It was a rather normal day back on March 11, 2011, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant before 2:45 p.m. That was the time when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck, followed by a massive tsunami that caused three reactor meltdowns and forever changed the nuclear power industry in Japan and worldwide. Now, 10 years later, much has been learned and done to improve nuclear safety, and despite many challenges, significant progress is being made to decontaminate and defuel the extensively damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor site. This is a summary of what happened, progress to date, current situation, and the outlook for the future there.
B. Lipschultz, B. LaBombard, S. Lisgo, J. L. Terry
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 3 | April 2007 | Pages 390-400
Technical Paper | Alcator C-Mod Tokamak | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1429
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The high neutral densities and short neutral mean-free-paths in the Alcator C-Mod divertor have provided a unique testing ground for our understanding of the role of neutrals in a tokamak. The high neutral pressures found in the C-Mod divertor can be reproduced in models only by including such processes as ion-neutral and neutral-neutral collisions and neutral viscosity, as well as taking into account the plasma in the private flux region. After detachment, when the divertor plate ion flux has dropped by more than an order of magnitude, the divertor pressure still remains high. High neutral collisionality and the plasma in the private flux region again help keep neutrals in the divertor along with the large source of neutrals due to recombination. Likewise, diffusive neutrals are the explanation for the divertor neutral pressure's insensitivity to strike point position. Closure of neutral leakage pathways did not lead to a decrease in neutral pressures in the region outside the divertor - the main chamber. This observation prompted further research, which showed that ion fluxes to main chamber surfaces rival those reaching the divertor plates; the main chamber pressure can be primarily determined by the level of ion transport perpendicular to the magnetic field. This finding has spawned a host of studies (active and passive) both at C-Mod and other tokamaks to understand how radial transport can be so large.