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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Fusion Energy Week begins today
Fusion is riding a surge of attention that began in December 2022 when researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition. The organizers of Fusion Energy Week—a group called the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team—on the other hand, trace fusion development back 100 years to the doctoral research of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered that stars, including our Sun, are mostly made of hydrogen and helium, which in turn led to the understanding that those elements are the “fuel” of potential fusion energy systems on Earth. In recognition of Payne-Gaposchkin’s birthday—May 10—the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team plans to hold a “grassroots celebration of fusion energy” May 6–10, 2024, and annually during the second week of May.
E. T. Cheng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 2 | September 2003 | Pages 549-553
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A395
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fusion based actinide destruction system is advantageous because of higher actinide destruction efficiency and higher energy efficiency when compared to other destruction technologies. The unique neutron multiplication capability due to the n,2n reactions in blanket materials with 14 MeV D-T neutrons enhances further the performance efficiency.Investigation of a high performance fusion based actinide destruction system was conducted. A self-cooled, actinide-carrying molten salt blanket can be designed to operate at a high sub-criticality factor of 0.95-0.96, with less than 0.4 wt% actinide concentration dissolved in the molten salt. The corresponding blanket energy multiplication is 160. Lithium-6, which is required for tritium breeding, can be used as a variable to shape the neutron spectrum and control the criticality factor, and thus to maintain a constant fission thermal power output from the actinide destruction plant.Sub-criticality can be maintained in all cases of the actinide destruction plant, during normal operation and abnormal conditions.A fusion device projected from a tokamak experiment can produce 30 MW fusion power, with a plasma amplification factor of 2. It is considered adequate to drive the sub-critical molten salt blanket. The total thermal fission power is about 4000 MW, which is able to destroy 1.6 metric tons of actinides annually when operating at full power.