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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
P. Gierszewski1, G. Williams2, J. Blevins1, H. Brunnader1, P. Cumyn3, B. Dean4, J. Galambos5, C. Holloway6, R. Kelly7, A. Natalizio1, S. Smith4
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 1146-1150
Fusion Power Reactor, Economic, and Alternate Concept | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40308
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The CFFTP Pilot plant concept is a driven, steady-state H-mode tokamak with ion cyclotron current drive. The fuel cycle uses low-tritium-inventory technologies, including compact toroid fuelling. The mechanical design is based on helium cooling, radial blanket maintenance, ceramic pebble breeder blanket, and demountable copper magnets. It is expected to operate for 1 full-power-year with 0.25 MW/m2 average (0.4 MW/m2 peak) neutron wall load. The machine would produce 20 MW of fusion power with 40 MW of auxiliary power. The 2.7 MA plasma current is ramped up inductively, and then sustained by the bootstrap current (32%) and fast wave current drive (68%). The plasma would be roughly the size of the TFTR plasma, but elongated with double-null divertors and an aspect ratio of 5. The total electric power consumption would be around 450 MWe. The tritium supply requirements, given partial breeding, would be only 0.8 kg. The on-site tritium inventory would be about 0.3 kg. The direct construction cost is estimated at 1.1 B$Cdn, with a total project cost of 2.3 B$Cdn (1992). CFFTP Pilot would provide steady-state integrated nuclear testing at a fluence and neutron wall load of about one-quarter ITER CDA, for a cost of about one-third ITER CDA. The blanket test area would be similar to the ITER CDA blanket test port area.
