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WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
R. L. Boivin, DIII-D Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 367-374
Technical Paper | The Technology of Fusion Energy - Experimental Devices and Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1515
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The DIII-D National Fusion Facility has long been a center of innovation and development of diagnostics for magnetic fusion devices. The DIII-D device, a moderate size tokamak, with a high flexibility shaping coil set, neutral beam injection (NBI), electron cyclotron heating (ECH) and ion cyclotron heating (ICH), supports a very broad research program infusion science, including critical aspects related to burning plasmas expected to be encountered in ITER. This scientific program is supported by a large set of diagnostics (approximately 50), which is the product of a highly collaborative program between universities, national laboratories and industry. Although many diagnostic systems are now routinely employed to measure a wide range of plasma parameters, such as temperature, rotation, density and current profiles, there are many areas that are inherently difficult or prohibitively expensive to diagnose. Such areas include the measurements associated with energetic ion populations or with the characterization of plasma flows in the divertor/edge area. In addition, the study of burning plasmas will require the development of new and updated techniques, which need to be developed and tested in existing devices in relevant plasma conditions.