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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
J. E. Klein, K. L. Shanahan, P. J. Foster, R. A. Baker
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 2 | March 2015 | Pages 424-427
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T45
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nominal 1500 STP-L Passively Cooled, Electrically heated hydride (PACE) Bed was developed and deployed into tritium service in Savannah River Site (SRS) Tritium Facilities. Process beds to be used for low concentration tritium gas were not fitted with instrumentation to perform the steady-state, flowing gas calorimetric inventory measurement method: In-Bed Accountability (IBA). In some instances, two physical beds, or canisters, were joined together with one process line connection, creating a bed with a total capacity of nominally 3000 STP-L or up to 815 grams of tritium. The IBA detection limit for these beds was estimated to be 9.75 grams tritium. After deployment of these low tritium beds, the need arose to estimate tritium inventories of these beds without installation of IBA instrumentation. Two methods have been developed to estimate the tritium inventory of these low tritium content beds. The first approach assumes the bed is half-full and uses a gas composition measurement to estimate the tritium inventory and uncertainty. The second approach utilizes the bed’s hydride material pressure-composition-temperature (PCT) properties and a gas composition measurement to reduce the uncertainty in the calculated bed inventory.