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Second round of Launch Pad selections includes eight newcomers
The National Reactor Innovation Center at Idaho National Laboratory has announced 13 project selections across 12 companies for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a Department of Energy–led program that integrates reactor and fuel facility authorization, testing, and deployment support for private nuclear developers.
The Launch Pad emerged from the Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program.
According to INL, projects selected include reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment, and conversion technologies.
Terry Kammash, David L. Galbraith
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 16 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 469-473
Technical Paper | Special Section: Cold Fusion Technical Notes / Tritium System | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A29109
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two schemes have been proposed to replace the aging tritium production facilities at Savannah River, South Carolina. The reactors at that site have been operating for well over a quarter of a century, producing tritium for national defense programs. But serious questions regarding safety and other issues have arisen. The U.S. Department of Energy and the federal government have reiterated their plan to build a heavy water reactor and a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor at a cost of about $7 billion as replacements for the Savannah River facility. A group of scientists from national laboratories, on the other hand, have proposed the use of a linear accelerator to accelerate protons to produce neutrons to be used to produce tritium in lithium targets. They contend that the capital cost of this accelerator tritium producer is competitive with that of the reactors, but the operating cost may be high unless it is located in a region where the cost of hydropower is low. Yet another scheme is proposed that is safe and potentially less expensive than the other two. It relies on existing or rapidly developing laser technology to drive a magnetically insulated inertial confinement fusion device, which has already produced copious amounts of neutrons that could readily be used in producing tritium.