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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
DOE fast tracks test reactor projects: What to know
The Department of Energy today named 10 companies that want to get a test reactor critical within the next year using the DOE’s offer to authorize test reactors outside of national laboratories. As first outlined in one of the four executive orders on nuclear energy released by President Trump on May 23 and in the request for applications for the Reactor Pilot Program released June 18, the companies must use their own money and sites—and DOE authorization—to get reactors operating. What they won’t need is a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license.
J. F. Lyon et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 414-421
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Experimental Devices and Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A723
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Four quasi-axisymmetric compact stellarator plasma and coil configurations are analyzed for their potential as reactors. A 0-D (volume-average) approach for optimizing the main reactor parameters allows study of the relationship between global parameters and the compatibility of different constraints for a given power output including plasma-coil spacing, coil-coil spacing, maximum field and coil current density, neutron wall loading, plasma beta value, etc. The result is reactor candidates with average major radii <R> in the 6-7 m range, a factor of two smaller than those of previous studies. A 1-D power balance code is used to study the ignited operating point and the effect of different plasma and confinement assumptions including density and temperature profiles, alpha particle losses, and helium particle confinement time for the different plasma and coil configurations.