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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
S. T. Perkins
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 69 | Number 2 | February 1979 | Pages 147-155
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE79-A20606
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The neutron and fusion rate enhancement from in-flight reactions created by knock-ons from fission fragment slowing down in a compressed eqi-molar DT-plutonium plasma has been calculated. The neutron enhancement is worth up to a factor-of-2 reduction in critical mass. However, the neutron e-folding time is on the order of the system disassembly time, thereby restricting the multiplication of the neutron population to a factor of 2 or 3. It therefore appears more appropriate to discuss fission in a thermonuclear plasma in terms of a fusion chain reaction (fission fragment amplification of the fusion rate) rather than a fission chain reaction (neutron enhancement and criticality).