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DOE approves Xcimer’s laser fusion power plant design
The Department of Energy has approved Xcimer Energy's Athena fusion power plant preconceptual technical design. With this milestone achieved, the Denver, Colo.-based company is now moving forward with its plans to develop economical laser inertial confinement fusion using two beamlines, gas laser technology, and a molten salt fusion chamber.
The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated net energy gain from inertial confinement fusion in 2022 using solid-state glass lasers and 192 beamlines.
Kyle Carberry, Bojan Petrovic
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 3 | March 2024 | Pages 409-435
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2229181
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The research presented herein outlines a comprehensive process for characterizing the major radiological source terms necessary for radiation protection and licensing activities that one would expect in a liquid-fueled molten salt reactor. This process leverages organic simulation tools in the SCALE modeling and simulation code suite to provide an “off-the-shelf” solution for shielding assessments of this reactor type. Ultimately, this source development process is applied to a representative molten salt reactor system to assess the impact of ex-core source terms on shielding in varying operating conditions. The results of the analysis determined that while the prompt core source is the major dose contributor outside the radiological shielding, specific ex-core features, such as the primary salt loop components and configuration, can have an appreciable dose impact, and thus must be accounted for.