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Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
H. Frewer, W. Keller, R. Pruschek
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 90 | Number 4 | August 1985 | Pages 411-426
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE85-4
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The modular high-temperature reactor (HTR-M) is characterized by the use of standardized reactor, heat transfer, and loop components. One or more primary circuit units make up the nuclear steam-generating system (or heat-generating system) of a HTR-M power plant. The core of the helium-cooled HTR-M consists of a randomly packed bed of spherical fuel elements (pebble bed reactor). The characteristic design of the HTR-M core ensures that permissible core temperatures are not exceeded, even if all cooling systems fail. Today, HTR-M power plants can already be applied in the combined generation of electricity, process steam, and/or district heat. In the near future the HTR-M can be used as a heat source for processing plants in the chemical industry, e.g., for methane cracking, coal gasification and similar chemical processes.