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Antares achieves zero-power criticality at INL
Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.
R. Raman, T. Brown, L. A. El-Guebaly, T. R. Jarboe, B. A. Nelson, J. E. Menard
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 674-679
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-976
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Economics, design simplifications, and design optimizations, may require a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) based on an ST or AT concept to generate the plasma currents required for initial plasma start-up to be produced without reliance on the conventional central solenoid. The method of Transient Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI) has been successfully used on the HIT-II device and on the thirty times larger in volume Proof-of-Principle NSTX device, to generate over 200 kA of plasma current, and to demonstrate the physics capability of this concept for the generation of substantial amounts of plasma currents in larger devices. The conceptual design of a transient CHI system for a ST-FNSF (BT = 3 T, R = 1.7 m, A = 1.7, Ip = 10 MA) is described, in which the projected start-up current generation potential is about 2 MA.