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WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
C. E. Thomas, Jr., J. H. Harris, G. R. Haste, C. C. Klepper, J. T. Hogan, S. Tobin, F. W. Baity, R. C. Isler, T. Uckan, D. B. Batchelor, M. D. Carter, P. M. Ryan, D. J. Hoffman, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Fusion Energy Division Team, B. Saoutic, B. Beaumont, A. Becoulet, H. Kuus, D. Fraboulet, A. Grosman, D. Guilhem, W. Hess, J. Walter, T. Loarer, M. Chatelier, Equipe Tore Supra
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 1 | September 1996 | Pages 1-39
Technical Paper | Plasma Heating System | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A30760
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Understanding ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) antenna interaction with the edge/scrape-off-layer (SOL) plasma is crucial to building antennas that can survive long-pulse or steady-state high-power operation in plasmas. The global effects of ICRF/edge interactions are discussed. The present knowledge of ICRF-induced sheath interactions with the edge and SOL plasmas in magnetic fusion experiments is quantitatively reviewed and added to. The design principles and equations governing plasma heat loading and the sputtering of Faraday shields and the bumper limiters of ICRF antennas for long-pulse and steady-state devices are presented. Electrostatic sheaths on Faraday shields and bumper limiters are discussed, and an analytic estimate of the induced direct-current (dc) plasma potential at the lateral protection (bumper limiters) of ICRF antennas is given. This is a new result. This estimated dc voltage is used to give the total power flow to the lateral protection, and an expression for the power flux is given—also with new results. Equations to use in estimating impurity production (sputtering) and principles for minimizing impurity production are reviewed. Similar equations and estimates for electromotive radio-frequency sheaths are given, and new scaling laws for the dc voltage and power flow to the ICRF antenna lateral protection due to electromotive sheaths are proposed. The initial results from the ICRF/edge interaction experiments on Tore Supra are presented and discussed in light of the theoretical and heuristic results given.
