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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.
Alvin Shapiro, Warren F. Stubbins
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 45 | Number 1 | July 1971 | Pages 47-51
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE71-A20344
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The photofission yields of 238Pu and 239Pu were measured up to 11.5 MeV with the University of Cincinnati betatron. Corona discharge spark detectors were used to detect the fission fragments from isotopically pure foils in the presence of the very high alpha-particle activity of the plutonium. The photofission cross sections were deduced from the yields by both the Penfold-Leiss procedure and Cook's least-structure analysis. They show the onset of the giant resonance. The cross section for 238Pu at 7.5 MeV is 28 ± 5 mb and 21 ± 4 mb for 239Pu. At 11.0 MeV, the corresponding values were 303 ± 94 mb and 221 ± 69 mb. Between 7.5 and 11 MeV, the 238Pu photofission cross section is ∼35% larger than that for 239Pu.