|
|
Russia Puts Forward Its Fusion, and Fission/Fusion Hybrid Program; Many U.S. Scientists Barred from Attending Conference
24 October 2014
Marsha Freeman
(LPAC)—The week-long 25th Fusion Energy Conference held in St. Petersburg, under the auspices of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, which ended on Oct. 18, included presentations by officials in Russia’s research programs on that nation’s energy plans for the future. According to the conference website, there were over 600 delegates registered to participate from 43 countries. But, according to Fusion Power Associates director Steve Dean, scientists from the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories were not allowed to attend, thanks to the Administration’s sanctions regime. Dean reports that U.S. representation was mainly from universities and major contractor General Atomics. This has left prominent scientists from some of the major fusion programs trying to find out what was discussed at the meeting. According to the conference website, in his plenary presentation, Academician E.P. Velikhov, the director of the Kurchatov Institute, who has been a leader in Russia’s fusion effort since the 1970s, described Russia’s "hybrid reactor technologies program." (Dhiraj Bora, director of the Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, who led the Indian contingent to the conference, described the presentation as causing a "sensation"). The hybrid program, Velikhov said, "does not comprise any new ideas—to some extent, it is the furtherance of the ideas of [Igor] Kurchatov [that] he laid down as early as 1958." (See, "The Fusion-Fission Hybrid," January 1979, Fusion magazine). Now, finally, Russia is going to build one. On October 15, Mikhail Kovalchuk, from the Kurchatov Institute, announced that Russia’s project to develop a fusion-fission hybrid reactor is open for international collaboration. "We are trying to combine a schematically operational nuclear plant reactor with a tokamak, to create a hybrid reactor," he stated, and added: "This project is open for our colleagues, the Chinese, in the first place. It’s being discussed." In his presentation at the St. Petersburg conference, Dr. B. Kuteev, from the Kurchatov Institute, showed graphics from Velikhov, outlining the technologies in both fission and fusion that must be developed through the project. The timeline puts the construction of an industrial hybrid plant by 2040. Asked whether he "believes" ITER will be a success, Oleg Filatov, from one of Russia’s nuclear companies, replied: "This is not a religion in which ones believes or not. This is a reality." |
