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Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Remembering ANS member Gil Brown
Brown
The nuclear community is mourning the loss of Gilbert Brown, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Brown, an American Nuclear Society Fellow and an ANS member for nearly 50 years, joined the faculty at Lowell Technological Institute—now the University of Massachusetts–Lowell—in 1973 and remained there for the rest of his career. He eventually became director of the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering program. After his retirement, he remained an emeritus professor at the university.
Sukesh Aghara, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization, noted in an email to NEDHO members and others that “Gil was a relentless advocate for nuclear energy and a deeply respected member of our professional community. He was also a kind and generous friend—and one of the reasons I ended up at UMass Lowell. He served the university with great dedication. . . . Within NEDHO, Gil was a steady presence and served for many years as our treasurer. His contributions to nuclear engineering education and to this community will be dearly missed.”
G. L. Kulcinski, J. F. Santarius
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 242-247
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1333863
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
It will be several decades before the first commercial fusion power plant is placed on the electricity grid. However, there are many non-electricity uses for fusion energy that can be realized in the next 5–10 years when the Q value (energy out/energy in) obtained in fusion systems is ≪1. This paper explores those possibilities dividing them into 3 categories: 1) Commercial Products, 2) Applications for Academia and Utilities, 3) Applications for Military/Governmental uses. At the present time, over 20 near term applications have been identified but it is expected that there could be many more once the fusion community focuses on the near term time frame. Since the near term applications do not require Q > 1, all fusion reactions can be considered. This means, for example, that one can consider fusion reactions that not only emit neutrons (from DT and DD) but also other reactions such as D3He that emit high-energy (14 MeV) protons because they can be used to make short half life Positron Emission Tomography (PET) isotopes. Both steady state and pulsed fusion reactions are also fair game because there is no reason for Q > 1 to be a constraint.