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RIC panel discusses pathway to fusion commercialization
Fusion leaders at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual Regulatory Information Conference discussed the path forward for regulating the burgeoning fusion industry. The speakers discussed government and private industry initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom, with a focus on efforts shaping the near-term deployment of commercial fusion machines.
A recurring theme was the need to explain the difference between fission and fusion. Representatives from the Department of Energy and Type One Energy highlighted this as an important distinction for regulators, as it will allow fusion to undergo its own independent maturation process for developing standards and regulations in the same way that fission has. Lea Perlas, Fusion Program director at the Virginia Department of Health, said that confusion between fission and fusion has been a common cause for misplaced concerns among community members surrounding Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ proposed fusion plant site near Richmond, Va.
S. E. Attenberger, W. A. Houlberg
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 129-134
Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22856
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Energy relaxation and spatial diffusion of fast alpha particles are incorporated into a multienergy group model which is coupled to a fluid transport code for the thermal plasma species. The multienergy group equations evolve the temporal- and spatial-dependent alpha particle distribution function and thus determine alpha particle heating and loss rates for arbitrary thermalization and diffusion models. The effects of deviations from classical, local thermalization on plasma performance are discussed. It is shown that spatial diffusion can lead to inversion of the fast ion distribution function even if thermalization remains classical. This inversion may drive instabilities and lead to anomalous thermalization. Ripple-induced spatial diffusion of fast alphas is used to illustrate the importance of extending the analysis to include pitch angle dependence.
