| NUKLEONIKA 2012, 57(4):447-450
SAFETY ISSUES AS A START POINT FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS
OF FUSION HYBRIDS
Grzegorz Wójcik, Stefan Taczanowski
AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Energy and Fuels,
al. A. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Nuclear power plants supply nearly one sixth of the world electric energy production. Though nuclear power is a very efficient source of energy, it produces dangerous radioactive waste composed of nuclides characterized, among others, by a long decay time and containing also significant quantities of fissible and even fissile materials. Therefore, spent nuclear fuel must be carefully stored for at least hundreds of years, all this time needing permanent supervision. Simultaneously this cumbersome waste contains also important amounts of energy that should not be simply buried forever. Thus, in spite of the fact that ultimate disposal of spent nuclear fuel in adequate geological formations is recognized as safe for the energy hungry world that tries at the same time to avoid CO2 emissions, this is a hardly acceptable solution. Fortunately, there is an effective approach, namely – spent fuel recycling, particularly with the help of nuclear fusion. Simultaneously, one has to admit that this concept has not attained yet technological maturity, thus lengthy and costly investigations still are necessary before nuclear fusion achieves development level adequate to industrial application. Since every nuclear device must be generally safe, therefore this article raises a safety issue of fusion-fission hybrid design. In order to ensure the required reliability of evaluations the development of heterogeneous model
of the device was assumed as the starting point for further respective research. The performed calculations have indicated that maintenance of subcriticality even in the case of system collapse is achievable.
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