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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
I. N. Sviatoslavsky, A. R. Raffray, M. E. Sawan, X. Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 535-539
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A739
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A multi-institutional study HAPL (High Average Power Laser) is investigating a relatively near term conceptual design of a laser driven inertial confinement reactor. A primary focus of the study is the protection of the first wall (FW) from the target emanations. This paper gives a brief analysis of one of several possible blankets that can be integrated with the chosen FW protection scheme. The structural material is conventional ferritic steel (FS) F82H cooled with liquid lithium. The maximum average temperature is constrained to 550°C. The chamber radius is 6.5 m at midplane, tapering to 2.5 m at the ends, and is surrounded by a cylindrical vacuum vessel. The first wall (FW) is 0.35 cm FS, which has a 0.1 cm thick layer of tungsten bonded to it facing the target. The FW is cooled with Li admitted at the bottom of the blanket, flows through a gap between 0.25-0.5 cm to the top, then returns through the center of the blanket channel to the bottom. There are 60 laser beam ports situated around the chamber. The tritium breeding ratio (TBR) is 1.124. A Brayton cycle is envisaged with an efficiency in the range of 42-44%.