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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
Kazuhiro Kobayashi, Takumi Hayashi, Yasunori Iwai, Toshihiko Yamanishi, R. Scott Willms, R. V. Carlson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 311-314
Technical Paper | Environment and Safety | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1820
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To construct a fusion reactor with high safety and acceptability, it is necessary to establish and to ensure tritium safe handling technology. Tritium should be well-controlled not to be released to the environment excessively and to prevent workers from excess exposure. It is especially important to grasp tritium behavior in the final confinement area, such as the room and/or building. In order to obtain data for actual tritium behavior in a room and/or building, a series of intentional Tritium Release Experiments (TREs) were planned and carried out within a radiologically controlled area (main cell) at Tritium System Test Assembly (TSTA) in Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) under US-JAPAN collaboration program. These experiments were carried out three times. In these experiments, influence of a difference in the tritium release point and the amount of hydrogen isotope for the initial tritium behavior in the room were suggested. Tritium was released into the main cell at TSTA/LANL. The released tritium reached a uniform concentration about 30 ~ 40 minutes in all the experiments. The influence of the release point and the amount of hydrogen isotope were not found to be important in these experiments. The experimental results for the initial tritium behavior in the room were also simulated well by the modified three-dimensional eddy flow analysis code FLOW-3D.