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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Dale M. Meade
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 393-399
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Experimental Devices and Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A720
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The overall vision for FIRE is to develop and test the fusion plasma physics and plasma technologies needed to realize capabilities of the ARIES-RS/AT power plant designs. The mission of FIRE is to attain, explore, understand and optimize a fusion dominated plasma which would be satisfied by producing DT fusion plasmas with nominal fusion gains ~10, self-driven currents of [is approximately to]80%, fusion power ~ 150 - 300 MW and pulse lengths up to 40 s. Achieving these goals will require the deployment of several key fusion technologies under conditions approaching those of ARIES-RS/AT. The FIRE plasma configuration with strong plasma shaping, a double null pumped divertor and all metal plasma facing components is a 40% scale model of the ARIES-RS/AT plasma configuration. "Steady-state" advanced tokamak modes in FIRE with high , high bootstrap fraction and 100% non-inductive current drive are suitable for testing the physics of the ARIES-RS/AT operating modes. The development of techniques to handle power plant relevant exhaust power while maintaining low tritium inventory is a major objective for a burning plasma experiment. The FIRE H-modes and AT-modes result in fusion power densities from 3 - 10 MWm-3 and neutron wall loading from 2 - 4 MW m-2 which are at the levels expected from the ARIES-RS/AT design studies.
