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Fusion Science and Technology
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NN Asks: How can nuclear energy support the rising energy demand from data centers?
Nicolas Stauff
Data centers power our digital lives—along with many aspects of our economy and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. Electricity demand is rising rapidly, with the domestic data center load projected to increase from 4 percent to 9 percent of U.S. electricity consumption by 2030. This surge is already reshaping utility planning, grid interconnection queues, and the market for reliable power nationwide.
Nuclear energy is well matched to data center needs, because it provides reliable, 24/7 electricity with stable long-term costs. Modern hyperscale data center campuses can require hundreds of megawatts for IT equipment and cooling, and many applications demand maximum uptime. At the same time, leading hyperscalers have aggressive decarbonization commitments that limit reliance on fossil generation. Data centers also require fiber connectivity, a skilled workforce, and local acceptance—yet they can deliver meaningful tax base and employment impacts, especially when coupled with a major energy project.
L.N. Vyacheslavov, V.F. Gurko, O.I. Meshkov, V.F. Zharov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 35 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 422-426
Poster Presentations | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A11963898
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two laser scattering systems based on Nd-glass laser and avalanche photodiodes are proposed. First system is designed for observation of radial profiles of the electron plasma density and temperature. Each of its 2–4 spectral modules consists of 25 spatial channels and includes a bandpass interference filter, low F-number camera lens, and 25-channel linear array of the avalanche photodiodes followed by amplifiers and ADCs. Every of 25 spatial channel can view the plasma volume with an adjustable length of 1.5–15 mm along the radius of a trap. In the IR spectral region the plasma background radiation is small and the main source of noise is the amplifier noise, which permits in this case observation of a plasma of a density of 1012 cm−3 with the S/N >60.
The second system is intended for measuring the longitudinal ne and Te profiles and uses the LIDAR technique, which is more suitable for open traps than for large tokomaks due to considerable larger axial length. A relative simple short pulse version of the probe laser (0.5–1 ns, 10 J), commercially available high speed APD-preamplifier modules, and ADC, as well as very high contrast-interference filters can provide longitudinal measurements with the spatial resolution 1 ≤·20 cm and S/N > 40 for ne ⩾1012 cm−3
The probe laser (30J, 8 ns, 1.06 μm, 0.2 mrad) and the prototype of a single spectral module for radial measurements have been developed an used in an experiment.
