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Antares achieves zero-power criticality at INL
Leveraging more than $140 million in private capital fundraising, over 322,000 square feet of operational manufacturing space, and multifaceted partnerships with the Departments of Energy and Defense, reactor start-up Antares has become the first company involved in the Reactor Pilot Program to achieve zero-power fueled criticality—a full month ahead of the July 4 deadline set by President Trump’s Executive Order 14301.
This milestone, announced yesterday, was achieved with the company’s Mark-0: a sodium heat-pipe-cooled, TRISO-fueled microreactor. The Mark-0 is a forerunner to the company’s flagship design, which it calls the R1. For Antares, this development represents a key validation of its reactor physics, control systems, and supply chain.
Luciano Ondir Freire, Delvonei Alves de Andrade
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 4 | May 2022 | Pages 259-274
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.2000327
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Scientists detected 2.45-MeV neutrons and in smaller yields 4- and 5-MeV neutrons in deuterated metals under a 2.9-MeV electron beam. Such discovery could allow the use of deuterated metals at temperatures below their melting point to provide nuclear fusion reactions. Such reactions could provide fast neutrons and energy in the form of heat. This work analyzed the results of some experiments to infer the neutron multiplication rate in such environments. It also considered the possible roles that such phenomena could play in a commercial nuclear power reactor under economic and compactness constraints. It seems the best way to promote nuclear fusion is the irradiation of deuterated metals by fast neutrons. This work presents the concept of a hybrid fusion–fission reactor using fissile or fertile fuel to generate heat and fast neutrons along deuterated metals providing excess neutrons (reactivity boost). Additionally, deuterated metals also may have a role in neutron moderation requiring less volume than other moderators (water or graphite). Such a reactor, given its reactivity boost, may burn radioactive residuals (transmutation) at affordable costs while generating power. Alternatively, this hybrid fusion–fission concept could also breed fissile fuel from fertile isotopes using natural uranium as seed.