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Latest News
DNFSB’s Summers ends board tenure, extending agency’s loss of quorum
Lee
Summers
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the independent agency responsible for ensuring that Department of Energy facilities are protective of public health and safety, announced that the board’s acting chairman, Thomas Summers, has concluded his service with the agency, having completed his second term as a board member on October 18.
Summers’ departure leaves Patricia Lee, who joined the DNFSB after being confirmed by the Senate in July 2024, as the board’s only remaining member and acting chair. Lee’s DNFSB board term ends in October 2027.
E.T. Cheng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 489-495
Nonelectrical Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963660
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ST-VNS devices designed for testing and developing fusion power blanket may offer a unique opportunity for near-term, non-electric applications:
-A minimum size, MW level, plasma based 14 MeV neutron source can be very attractive for neutron science applications such as neutron and gamma radiography, and isotope production.-A 70–250 MW level ST-VNS can provide neutrons to drive a sub-critical fission assembly to destroy the actinides discharged from about 10–30 light water reactors and to produce power. A further reduction of long-term radiological hazard from fission power plants can be assured when additional 1,000 – 3,000 MW fusion reactors are developed in the future to transmute the long-lived fission products, Tc and I.-The ST-VNS device also offers a possibility to produce tritium for industrial and defense applications. A 300 MW spin-off device is capable of producing an excess tritium of 2 kg annually, when a conservative overall tritium breeding ratio of 1.2 and 60% availability are assumed.
A minimum size, MW level, plasma based 14 MeV neutron source can be very attractive for neutron science applications such as neutron and gamma radiography, and isotope production.
A 70–250 MW level ST-VNS can provide neutrons to drive a sub-critical fission assembly to destroy the actinides discharged from about 10–30 light water reactors and to produce power. A further reduction of long-term radiological hazard from fission power plants can be assured when additional 1,000 – 3,000 MW fusion reactors are developed in the future to transmute the long-lived fission products, Tc and I.
The ST-VNS device also offers a possibility to produce tritium for industrial and defense applications. A 300 MW spin-off device is capable of producing an excess tritium of 2 kg annually, when a conservative overall tritium breeding ratio of 1.2 and 60% availability are assumed.
