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WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
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.