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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.
David C. Wade, Edward K. Fujita
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 103 | Number 2 | October 1989 | Pages 182-195
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE89-6
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Favorable passive reactivity shutdown performance in response to unprotected accident initiators has been shown to be achievable when several measurable, integral reactivity parameters related to the power, flow, and inlet temperature coefficients of reactivity satisfy certain simple constraints among their dimensionless ratios. The trends in these dimensionless ratios with reactor size for both oxide- and metal-fueled cores have been developed, based on a data base of ∼24 reactor designs in the range from 400 to 3600 MW(thermal). Based on the trends, it is possible to conclude that the favorable passive reactivity shutdown features that accrue to the metallic-fueled reactors in the mod-ular-size range can be achieved as well in the larger commercial sizes.