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60 Years of U: Perspectives on resources, demand, and the evolving role of nuclear energy
Recent years have seen growing global interest in nuclear energy and rising confidence in the sector. For the first time since the early 2000s, there is renewed optimism about the industry’s future. This change is driven by several major factors: geopolitical developments that highlight the need for secure energy supplies, a stronger focus on resilient energy systems, national commitments to decarbonization, and rising demand for clean and reliable electricity.
R. E. Olson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 1147-1151
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Inertial Fusion Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A841
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Z-pinch fusion energy power plant concept is based upon an X-ray driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) capsule having a hypothetical yield of 3 GJ with an overall target gain in the range of 50-100. In the present paper, a combination of analytic arguments, results of radiation-hydrodynamic computational simulations, and empirical scalings from Z-pinch hohlraum experiments are used to demonstrate that the absorption of approximately 6 MJ of X-ray energy by the capsule and 26 MJ by the hohlraum walls of an ICF target (~ 32 MJ total X-ray input) will be adequate to provide a 3 GJ yield. As a result, it appears that the Ref. 1 assumption of a 3 GJ thermonuclear yield with an overall target gain approaching 100 is conceptually feasible.