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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.
Scott M. Whitney, Steven Biegalski, Bruce Buchholz
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 157 | Number 2 | October 2007 | Pages 200-209
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-A2722
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An extensive study was conducted to determine isotopic ratios of nuclides in spent fuel that may be utilized to reveal historical characteristics of a nuclear reactor cycle. This forensic information is important to determine the origin of unknown nuclear waste. The distribution of isotopes in waste products provides information about a nuclear fuel cycle, even when the isotopes of uranium and plutonium are removed through chemical processing. Several different reactor cycles of the pressurized water reactor, boiling water reactor, Canada deuterium uranium reactor, and liquid-metal fast breeder reactor were simulated for this work with the ORIGEN-ARP and ORIGEN2.2 codes. The spent-fuel nuclide concentrations of these reactors were analyzed to find the most informative isotopic ratios indicative of irradiation cycle length and reactor design. Special focus was given to long-lived and stable fission products that would be present many years after their creation. For such nuclides, mass spectrometry analysis methods often have better detection limits than classic gamma-ray spectroscopy. The isotopic ratios 151Sm/146Sm, 149Sm/146Sm, and 244Cm/246Cm were found to be good indicators of fuel cycle length and are well suited for analysis by accelerator mass spectroscopy.