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Deep Fission to break ground this week
With about seven months left in the race to bring DOE-authorized test reactors on line by July 4, 2026, via the Reactor Pilot Program, Deep Fission has announced that it will break ground on its associated project on December 9 in Parsons, Kansas. It’s one of many companies in the program that has made significant headway in recent months.
M. E. Sawan, S. Malang, C. P. C. Wong, M. Z. Youssef
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 510-517
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A735
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutronics assessment has been performed for molten salt breeding blanket design options that can be utilized in fusion power plants. The concepts evaluated are a self-cooled Flinabe blanket with Be multiplier and dual-coolant blankets with He-cooled FW and structure. Three different molten salts were considered including the high melting point Flibe, a low melting point Flibe, and Flinabe. The same TBR can be achieved with a thinner self-cooled blanket compared to the dual-coolant blanket. A thicker Be zone is required in designs with Flinabe. The overall TBR will be ~1.07 based on 3-D calculations without breeding in the divertor region. Using Be yields higher blanket energy multiplication than obtainable with Pb. A modest amount of tritium is produced in the Be (~3 kg) over the blanket lifetime of ~3 FPY. Using He gas in the dual-coolant blanket results in about a factor of 2 lower blanket shielding effectiveness. We show that it is possible to ensure that the shield is a lifetime component, the vacuum vessel is reweldable, and the magnets are adequately shielded. We conclude that molten salt blankets can be designed for fusion power plants with neutronics requirements such as adequate tritium breeding and shielding being satisfied.