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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Romano Toschi, Max Chazalon, Folker Engelmann, Jos Nihoul, Jürgen Raeder, Ettore Salpietro
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 1 | July 1988 | Pages 19-29
Technical Paper | Net Overview | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25149
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The objective of the Next European Torus (NET) is to demonstrate fusion energy production in an apparatus that meets the basic design and operating requirements of a reactor: 1. self-sustained deuterium-tritium thermonuclear reaction (ignition) 2. extended burn up to steady state 3. qualification and testing of components in reactor-like conditions 4. safe operation of a reactor-like device at significant availability 5. energy extraction at high grade and tritium breeding. The NET project guidelines as derived from the Fusion European Strategy are as follows: 1. to allow for a wide range of plasma parameters and minimize complexity, particularly for the first phase of physics investigation 2. to adopt, where possible and convenient, reactor-relevant technologies 3. to allow for improvements during operation, in particular for in-vessel components. Significant extrapolations from the Joint European Torus are anticipated. Therefore, the first phase of operation will have all the features of a “physics machine” for scientific feasibility demonstration, but have the potential and capability for technology feasibility demonstration. The selection of NET parameters has been guided by the following requirements: 1. to achieve ignition under a variety of assumptions on plasma confinement and operational limits. On this basis, a plasma current of ∼ 15 MA was chosen. 2. to accommodate various plasma shapes 3. to inductively drive the plasma current for a time much longer than particle confinement times (i.e., >100 s) 4. to perform engineering tests on representative blanket sectors. This leads to constraints on the neutron wall loading (≧0.5 MW/m2), on the inductive burn pulse duration (≧200 s), on the off-burn time (≦70s), and on the integral burn time of the device (≈ 7000 h). 5. to allow long burn up to steady-state operation, if achievable, with external heating powers not exceeding 100 MW, for engineering tests. NET is presently in the predesign phase. In 1990, a decision will be sought to expand the activity into a detailed design phase. Construction will begin as soon as the physics data base is adequate, anticipated to be 1994. Therefore, the technologies and design solutions must be proven feasible and reliable by that date. The machine should be completed by the year 2000.