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September 8–11, 2025
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.”
Robert L. Hirsch, Gerald L. Kulcinski, Doug Chapin, Herman Diekamp
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 5 | July 2020 | Pages 670-679
doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1766272
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Electric Power Research Institute outlined three criteria important for a commercially viable fusion power plant: competitive electric power cost, regulatory simplicity, and public acceptance. In this paper we consider likely U.S. regulatory considerations for deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion power reactors, relying on existing criteria and past actions by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has asserted regulatory jurisdiction over U.S. commercial fusion reactors. We begin with consideration of a basic D-T fusion reactor, independent of plasma confinement approach. Because tritium and radioactivity are present, likely regulation will require containment structures and various safety measures for each component. Regulators are certain to require that all nuclear components of the system be housed in an overall containment vessel that must be held at less than atmospheric pressure to contain any leakage of tritium, radioactive corrosion products, radioactive coolant, and activated elements in the air. In addition, regulators are sure to require plant structure and operations that minimize the potential for clandestine plutonium breeding. Next, we add superconducting magnets and a plasma dump (divertor) to the basic system and recognize the small but nonzero probability of those magnets explosively quenching, potentially causing reactor damage and dramatically increasing containment vessel pressure. Finally, we consider ITER as prototypical of a D-T–fueled fusion power reactor. Because ITER-like systems are subject to damaging plasma disruptions, regulators are almost certain to require safeguards against such events significantly damaging first walls and subsystems. Finally, we believe that regulators are not likely to back off significantly in requirements related to the deuterium-deuterium and D3He fuel cycles even though the tritium production and the neutron damage in the latter fuel cycle are significantly below those in a D-T system. However, regulations for p11B and 3He3He fuel cycles are certain to be dramatically less demanding because of the lack of tritium and essentially no neutron production.