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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.
R. L. Reid
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 1025-1030
Next-Generation Devices | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22993
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The present Department of Energy (DOE) plan calls for the construction of an Engineering Test Reactor (ETR) that is to be the last major experimental fusion device prior to the commercialization of fusion power. The plasma driver of the ETR is to be either a long-pulse tokamak or a tandem mirror machine. The possibility of using the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) facility to consolidate the physics and technology database for the tokamak version of the ETR has been considered. This paper addresses two of the options being considered: (1) a superconducting toroidal field (TF) coil-hydrogen plasma alternative and (2) a superconducting or hybrid TF coil-high Q alternative. Both options assume essentially steady-state operation through the application of rf current drive. The options are evaluated on the basis of performance and cost determined by application of the Fusion Engineering Design Center (FEDC) Tokamak System Code.