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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Latest News
Russia withdraws from 25-year-old weapons-grade plutonium agreement
Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, approved a measure to withdraw from a 25-year-old agreement with the United States to cut back on the leftover plutonium from Cold War–era nuclear weapons.
E. Greenspan, G. H. Miley
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 2 | Number 1 | January 1982 | Pages 43-54
Technical Paper | Fusion Fuel Cycles | doi.org/10.13182/FST82-A20733
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The maximum fraction of 3He recoverable from deuterium-based plasmas (to fuel D-3He fusion reactors) is investigated, and optimal plasma conditions are identified. The upper bound to the fraction of 3He recoverable from ignited plasmas is ∼80%, corresponding to one 3He atom per 50 MeV of fusion energy, but recovery efficiency is very sensitive to the plasma energy balance. Effects of enhanced radiation losses, tritium assistance, ion/electron temperature split, plasma temperature and density profiles, and external plasma heating are examined. It appears possible to recover ∼70% of the 3He produced in realistic driven semi-catalyzed deuterium (SCD) plasmas, at 70 MeV per atom. This suggests interesting possibilities for the symbiosis of SCD synfuel factories with satellite D-3He reactors for the generation of electricity.
