Week 48 of 2024
Three nuclear energy innovation news!
🍣 Japan launches the FAST (Fusion by Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) project, aiming to generate and sustain a plasma of deuterium-tritium (D-T) reactions by the end of the 2030's, while demonstrating an integrated fusion energy system that combines energy conversion including electricity generation and fuel technologies. The target power generation is 50-100 MW, with a discharge duration of 1000 s and a cumulative operational time of 1000 h at full power. The preliminary design is expected to be completed within the year 2025.
🔨 DeepGEO and copenhagen atomics enter a collaboration to advance thorium reactor technologies. The partnership focuses on understanding the radioactive material and fuel needs of copenhagen atomics' reactor design, which uses transuranic elements from spent nuclear fuel to initiate thorium reactions. This process involves separating nuclear waste into streams—zircaloy, uranium, fission products, and transuranics—aiming to drastically reduce long-lived waste. DeepGEO will provide waste management services, while the collaboration explores international handling, legislation, and the economic potential of this technology.
📈 Over the past few days, a number of countries have taken step to (re)start their nuclear ambitions: Brazil will extend the Angra 1 nuclear power unit, Kenya is on track to start construction of its first plant in 2027, Vietnam is pushing to restart the Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant and build two more, and Germany’s largest opposition party alliance has called for an expert assessment to re-evaluate the viability of nuclear energy. While these are not innovations per se, the good vibes have to be shared nonetheless.
👨🎓 Paper of the week: "Chemical and structural durability of α-Al2O3 and γ-LiAlO2 layers formed on ODS FeCrAl alloys in liquid lithium lead stirred flow", Corrosion Science (2024)
👉 New superalloy tested in fusion plasma conditions.
