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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Kenneth Evans, Jr., Charles C. Baker, Jeffrey N. Brooks, Robert G. Clemmer, David A. Ehst, Patricia A. Finn, Harold Herman, Jungchung Jung, Richard F. Mattas, Balabhadra Misra, Dale L. Smith, Herbert C. Stevens, Larry R. Turner, Robert B. Wehrle, Kevin M. Barry, Albert E. Bolon, Robert T. McGrath, Lester M. Waganer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 226-236
Technical Paper | Special Section Content / Fusion Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST4-2P1-226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
WILDCAT is a conceptual design of a catalyzed deuterium-deuterium tokamak commercial fusion reactor. WILDCAT utilizes the beneficial features of no tritium breeding, while not extrapolating unnecessarily from existing deuterium-tritium (D-T) designs. The reactor is larger and has higher magnetic fields and plasma pressures than typical D-T devices. It is more costly, but eliminates problems associated with tritium breeding and has tritium inventories and throughputs approximately two orders of magnitude less than typical D-T reactors. There are both a steady-state version with Alfvén-wave current drive and a pulsed version. Extensive comparison with D-T devices has been made, and cost and safety analyses have been included. All of the major reactor systems have been worked out to a level of detail appropriate to a complete conceptual design.