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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. J. Piet, M. S. Kazimi, L. M. Lidsky
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 533-538
Environment and Safety | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22918
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The FUSECRAC code, a modification of the CRAC code, was developed to estimate public health effects from released fusion radioactivity both for safety studies and for comparison of the hazards associated with candidate structural materials. This paper summarizes the key motivations, problems, and results of the FUSECRAC comparison. The evolving CRAC code is a product of the Reactor Safety Study and represents the state of the art in fission accident consequence assessments. It was found that potential public health effects from accidental releases of 316 SS are two orders of magnitude higher than from V-15Cr-5Ti or TZM per unit volume of activated first wall released. The probabilities for releases among these materials were not addressed here.
