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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.
David L. Smith, Michael G. Mazarakis, Craig L. Olson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 922-926
Technical Paper | Inertial Fusion Technology: Drivers and Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1611
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A 70-MA, 7-MV, ~100-ns driver for a Z-pinch Inertial Fusion Energy (Z-IFE) power plant has been proposed. In this summary we address the transition region between the 70 Linear Transformer Driver (LTD) modules and the center Recyclable Transmission Line (RTL) load section, which convolves from the coaxial vacuum Magnetically Insulated Transmission Lines (MITL) to a parallel tri-plate and then a bi-plate disk feed. An inductive annular chamber terminates one side of the tri-plate in a manner that preserves vacuum and electrical circuit integrity without significant energy losses. The simplicity is offset by the disadvantage of the chamber size, which is proportional to the driver impedance and decreases with the addition of more parallel modules. Inductive isolation chamber sizes are estimated in this paper, based on an optimized LTD equivalent circuit simulation source driving a matched load using transmission line models. We consider the trade-offs between acceptable energy loss and the size of the inductive isolation chamber; accepting a 6% energy loss would only require a 60-nH chamber.