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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.
Yigal Ronen, Menashe Aboudy, Dror Regev, Erez Gilad
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 175 | Number 2 | October 2013 | Pages 149-156
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-84
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We show that it is possible to denature the plutonium produced in pebble bed modular reactors by doping the nuclear fuel with either 3050 ppm of 237Np or ~2100 ppm of isotopic composition of Am. A correct choice of these isotope concentrations yields denatured plutonium with isotopic ratio 238Pu/Pu 6%, for the entire fuel burnup cycle. The penalty for introducing these isotopes into the nuclear fuel is a subsequent shortening of the fuel burnup cycle, with respect to a nondoped reference fuel cycle, by ~40 and 20 full-power days, respectively, which correspond to 4.1 and 2.0 GW(d)/ton reduction in fuel discharge burnup.