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Illinois lifts moratorium on new large nuclear reactors
New power reactors of any size can be now be sited in the state of Illinois, thanks to legislation signed by Gov. J. B. Pritzker on January 8. The Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act (CRGA)—which Pritzker says is designed to lower energy costs for consumers, drive the development of new energy resources in the state, and strengthen the grid—lifts the moratorium on new, large nuclear reactors that Illinois enacted in the late 1980s.
R.W. Kincaid, M.A. Bourham
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 637-641
Plasma Fueling and Fuel Cycle | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40228
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The NCSU electrothermal plasma gun SIRENS has been used to accelerate plastic (Lexan polycarbonate) pellets, to determine the feasibility of the use of electrothermal guns as pellet injectors. The use of an electrothermal gun to inject frozen hydrogenic pellets requires a mechanism to provide protective shells (sabots) for shielding the pellet from ablation during acceleration into and through the barrel of the gun. The gun has been modified to accommodate acceleration of the plastic pellets using special acceleration barrels equipped with diagnostics for velocity and position of the pellet, and targets to absorb the pellet's energy on impact. The length of the acceleration path could be varied between 15 and 45 cm. The discharge energy of the electrothermal gun ranged from 2 to 6 kJ. The pellet velocities have been measured via a set of break wires. Pellet masses were varied between 0.5 and 1.0 grams. Preliminary results on 0.5 and 1.0 g pellets show that the exit velocity reaches 0.9 km/s at 6 kJ input energy to the source. Higher velocities of 1.5 and 2.7 km/s have been achieved using 0.5 and 1.0 gm pellets in 30 cm long barrel, without cleaning the barrel between the shots.