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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.
M. Taube
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 61 | Number 2 | October 1976 | Pages 212-221
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A27354
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fission products 90Sr and 137Cs produced by fission reactors of 30 GW(th) can be transmutated into stable nuclides by neutron irradiation with a thermal flux of 2 × 1016 n cm−2 s−1. The rates of transmutation are 15 and 3.3 times greater, respectively, than that of spontaneous beta decay. The transmutation would take place in a central thermalized region of a high-flux fast burner reactor of 7 GW(th). In the case where the power reactors of 23 GW(th) are breeders with a high breeding gain of G = 0.38, the total system, inclusive of the high-flux burner, remains a breeding system, with Gtotal = 0.09. Details of the neutronics calculations and simplified thermohydraulics are given. The high-flux burner is fueled with a molten salt of chlorides of plutonium and sodium with a power density of 10 kW cm−3. The “self-liquidation” of such a system is discussed.
