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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.”
D. T. Goodin, N. B. Alexander, G. E. Besenbruch, L. C. Brown, A. Nobile, R. W. Petzoldt, W. S. Rickman, D. Schroen, B. Vermillion
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 2 | September 2003 | Pages 279-283
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A347
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The "Target Fabrication Facility" (TFF) of an IFE power plant must supply about 500,000 targets per day. The targets are injected into the target chamber at a rate of 5-10 Hz and tracked precisely so the driver beams can be directed to the target. The feasibility of developing successful fabrication and injection methodologies at the low cost required for energy production (about $0.25/target, about 104 less than current costs) is a critical issue for inertial fusion. To help identify major cost factors and technology development needs, we have utilized a classic chemical engineering approach to the TFF. The analyses assume an "nth-of-a-kind" TFF and utilize standard industrial engineering cost factors. The results indicate that the direct drive target can be produced for about $0.16 each. Iterations are still underway for the indirect drive target. These cost analyses assume that the process development is accomplished to allow scaling of current laboratory methods to larger sizes, while still meeting target specifications. A development program is underway at various laboratories to support this scale-up.