Publication Type
Conference Paper
Journal Name
Fusion Technology
Publication Date
Page Number
1207
Volume
27
Issue
3
Conference Name
11th topical meeting on the technology of fusion energy
Conference Location
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America
Conference Date
Abstract
Radioactive waste generated as part of the commercial-power and defense nuclear programs can be either stored or transmuted. The latter treatment requires a capital-intensive neutron source and is reserved for particularly hazardous and long-lived actinide and fission-product waste. A comparative description of fusion-based transmutation is made on the basis of rudimentary estimates of energy-balance performance and transmutation capacities versus inventories for both ultra-low-aspect-ratio (spherical torus, ST) and conventional (aspect-ratio) tokamak fusion-power-core drivers. The parametric systems studies reported provides a preamble to more-detailed, cost-based systems analyses.