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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.
M. E. Fenstermacher, N. A. Uckan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 502-506
Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22913
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A formalism has been developed in terms of a drift kinetic equation with a Fokker-Planck collision operator to calculate alpha particle loss and energy deposition rate coefficients for one position in space and for steady-state operating conditions in an ELMO Bumpy Torus (EBT) reactor. Pitch angle and energy scattering terms were retained in the collision term so that the analysis provides information on alpha particle behavior due to pitch angle scattering into loss regions in velocity space and information on alpha energy deposition during slowing down in the device. A square well magnetic field shape is assumed and the resulting particle loss rates and energy deposition rates are calculated. For typical EBT reactor parameters, results show that while 80-90% of the alpha particles are scattered into a pitch angle loss region and lost from the device, more than 70% of the alpha particle energy is deposited in the core plasma and about 1–2% goes to alphas retained in the plasma as ash. Parametric studies are performed, and the sensitivity to plasma potential, the pitch angle, the width of loss regions, and computational procedures are analyzed.