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North American construction is back—smaller and faster—at OPG’s Darlington
“The nuclear renaissance is real here,” said Ontario Power Generation’s Subo Sinnathamby on May 8, one year to the day after OPG secured a final investment decision to build the first of four planned BWRX-300 reactors at its Darlington nuclear power plant, and shortly after the new reactor’s foundation was lifted into place. “We got our license to construct in April and our [final investment decision] in May, and we’ve been off to the races since.”
Renzo Carta, Stella Dernini, Anna Maria Polcaro, Pier Francesco Ricci, Giuseppe Tola, Giancarlo Pierini
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 1 | January 1989 | Pages 55-63
Technical Paper | Tritium System | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A25324
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent studies have given lower and lower values for the solubility of hydrogen isotopes in the eutectic 83Pb-17Li alloy, a candidate breeding material for the blanket of fusion machines. Therefore, thermodynamic stability for the gaseous phase under the high pressure reached at the bottom of the alloy containers can be achieved even for very low tritium concentrations in the liquid phase. A mathematical model to determine when tritium bubble nucleation occurs at an appreciable rate is presented. Considering the design parameters and the operating conditions of the Next European Torus project, it is foreseeable that the tritium generated in the blanket could evolve almost completely in the gaseous phase by forming bubbles at the top of the containers even if acceptable values of the tritium inventory (<100 g) and permeation (∼0,5 g·day−1) are maintained. This situation can be achieved if the molten alloy wets the metallic surface poorly and if the fouling on the exchanger side in contact with the cooling water causes a moderate increase of the resistance to tritium diffusion through the walls. Due to a lack of experimental data, a few assumptions are adopted, but the usefulness of the results obtained is not affected.