FPN09-12

Tokamak Fusion-Fission Hybrid

March 3, 2009

Bill Stacey, Callaway Regent's Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, has a long history of contributions to fusion. He has recently posted on their web page a paper entitled "Georgia Tech Studies of Sub-Critical Advanced Burner Reactors with a D-T Fusion Tokamak Neutron Source for the Transmutation of Spent Nuclear Fuel." The paper also gives references to 31 previous papers over the past 10 years relating to the subject of tokamak fusion-fission hybrids.

In the current paper, he describes a design called SABR (for Sub-critical Advanced Burner Reactor), a 3000 MWth sodium-cooled tokamak of the ITER type. "Because such a reactor concept is based on nuclear and reprocessing technology being developed in the DOE Nuclear Energy Program and because the neutron source is based on physics and technology that is the design basis for and that will be tested on ITER, such a SABR could potentially become operational within 25-30 years," he says.

The paper can be found at http://www.frc.gatech.edu and click on "Transmutation Reactors" and then on reference 18.

Bill can be contacted at weston.stacey@nre.gatech.edu