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Latest News
INL makes first fuel for Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment
Idaho National Laboratory has announced the creation of the first batch of enriched uranium chloride fuel salt for the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE). INL said that its fuel production team delivered the first fuel salt batch at the end of September, and it intends to produce four additional batches by March 2026. MCRE will require a total of 72–75 batches of fuel salt for the reactor to go critical.
D.A. Ehst, S. Kim, Y. Gohar, L. Turner, D.L. Smith, R. Mattas
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 1021-1031
Magnet Engineering, Design and Experiments — II | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A39827
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ceramic superconductors operating near liquid nitrogen temperature may experience higher heating rates without losing stability, compared to conventional superconductors. This will permit cable design with less stabilizer, reducing fabrication costs for large fusion magnets. Magnet performance is studied for different operating current densities in the superconductor, and cost benefits to commercial tokamak reactors are estimated. It appears that 10 kA ⋅ cm−2 (at 77 K and ∼ 10 T) is a target current density which must be achieved in order for the ceramic superconductors to compete with conventional materials. At current densities around 50 kA ⋅ cm−2 most potential benefits have already been gained, as magnet structural steel begins to dominate the cost at this point. For a steady state reactor reductions of ∼ 7% are forecast for the overall capital cost of the power plant in the best case. An additional ∼ 3% cost saving is possible for pulsed tokamaks.