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DOE-NE’s newest fuel consortium includes defense from antitrust laws
The Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy is setting up a nuclear fuel Defense Production Act Consortium that will seek voluntary agreements with interested companies “to increase fuel availability, provide more access to reliable power, and end America’s reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium and critical materials needed to power the nation’s nuclear renaissance.” According to an August 22 DOE press release, the plan invokes the Defense Production Act (DPA) to give consortium members “defense from antitrust laws when certain criteria are met” and “allow industry consultation to develop plans of action.” DOE-NE is looking for interested companies to join the consortium ahead of its first meeting, scheduled for October 14.
Osamu Mitarai, Akira Hirose, Harvey M. Skarsgard
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 2 | March 1991 | Pages 234-250
Technical Paper | Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29362
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The concept of a generalized ignition contour map, showing , and T, is used to study the ignition criterion for a D-3He fusion reactor with plasma temperature and density profiles. Direct heating scenarios to the D-3He ignition regime without the help of deuterium-tritium burning are considered. The machine size and enhancement factor for the confinement time required to reach D-3He ignition can be simply determined by comparing the height of the operation path with Goldston L-mode scaling and the height of the generalized saddle point. A confinement enhancement factor of 2 to 3 is required in the case of a large plasma current (30 to 80 MA) in a small-aspect-ratio tokamak. On the other hand, for a small plasma current (≲10 MA), large-aspect-ratio tokamak, an enhancement factor of 5 to 6 is necessary to reach ignition. Fuel dilution effects by fusion products and impurities, the confinement degradation effect due to 14-MeV protons, and the operation paths are also considered. To lower the height of the saddle point, and hence the auxiliary heating power, we optimize the fuel composition and examine operation in the hot ion mode.
