Researchers believe that achieving that goal requires development of more efficient and economical approaches to creating fusion energy than currently exist. Over the past year, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have released roadmaps calling for the aggressive development of fusion energy in the United States. This approach leads to plants that suffer less stress during operation than typical pulsed approaches to fusion power, enabling smaller, less expensive power plants. It also enables a stationary “always-on” configuration. This greatly reduces the need for expensive current drive systems that sap a fusion plant’s potential electric power output. Higher pressure also increases an effect where the motion of particles in the plasma naturally generates the current required. This alleviates some of the engineering and materials challenges facing fusion plant designers. In this approach to tokamak reactors, the improved performance at reduced plasma current reduces stress and heat loads. This advance could help achieve a state where the plasma sustains itself and drives most of its own current. This will enable operators to achieve higher pressures and fusion power with lower current. The models show that by carefully shaping the plasma and the distribution of current in the plasma, fusion plant operators can suppress turbulent eddies in the plasma. The Compact Advanced Tokamak (CAT) concept uses state-of-the-art physics models to potentially improve fusion energy production.
This creates a miniature sun that generates energy through nuclear fusion. Najmabadi et al., The ARIES-AT advanced tokamak, Advanced technology fusion power plant, Fusion Engineering Design, 80, 3-23 (2006).įusion power plants use magnetic fields to hold a ball of current-carrying gas (called a plasma). Credit: Image courtesy of General Atomics. The water has been stored in about 1,000 tanks which the operator says will reach their capacity late next year.The Compact Advanced Tokamak (CAT) is a potentially economical solution for fusion energy production that takes advantage of advances in simulation and technology. nuclear agency to ensure the discharge meets international safety standards and to gain the understanding of the international community.Ī six-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, currently in Japan, visited the plant on Tuesday to inspect preparations for the planned discharge.Ī massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 severely damaged three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing large amounts of contaminated cooling water to leak. The estimated radiation exposure for local fisherman in coastal areas, and for people who regularly consume seafood from the region was much less than 1 millisievert, an annual dose considered safe, TEPCO said. The simulation showed a slight rise in tritium levels within 2-3 kilometers (1.2-1.8 miles) from the plant, TEPCO official Junichi Matsumoto said.īut some experts say the long-term impact on marine life from low-dose exposures is still unknown. Controlled release of tritium from normal nuclear plants is a routine global practice, officials say. Government and TEPCO officials say tritium, which is not harmful in small amounts, cannot be removed from the contaminated water, but all other isotopes selected for treatment can be reduced to safe levels. TEPCO plans to send the water through an undersea tunnel and discharge it about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the coastal power plant after treating and diluting it with large amounts of seawater.Īccording to the simulation, radiation levels of seawater right above the release point temporarily increased slightly but quickly fell to normal levels, TEPCO said, Exposure to radioactivity was significantly lower than the maximum safe levels set by international organizations, it said. The plan has been fiercely opposed by fishermen, residents and Japan’s neighbors, including China and South Korea. The Japanese government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, say they will start gradually releasing the water in the spring of 2023 so hundreds of storage tanks at the plant can be removed to make room for facilities needed for its decommissioning.
TOKYO (AP) - The operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said Wednesday that a data simulation of its planned release of treated radioactive water into the sea suggests it would have an extremely small impact on the environment, marine life and humans.