James Gerity

Accelerator-driven subcritical fission in molten salt core: Closing the nuclear fuel cycle for green nuclear energy

A technology for accelerator-driven subcritical fission in a molten salt core (ADSMS) is being developed as a basis for the destruction of the transuranics in used nuclear fuel. The molten salt fuel is a eutectic mixture of NaCl and the chlorides of the transuranics and fission products. The core is driven by proton beams from a strong-focusing cyclotron stack. This approach uniquely provides an intrinsically safe means to drive a core fueled only with transuranics, thereby eliminating competing breeding terms.

New Magnet Technology for a 1.5 T Open-MRI Breast Imager

Structured windings and steel poles can be used to create a homogeneous field in a volume of interest (VOI) outside of a coil configuration. The methodology is explained and a first application to an optimized open-MRI imager for breast imaging is presented. Similar methods have been used to design a gradient coil set to similarly project uniform gradient into the same VOI. Aspects of the design and cryogenics of the magnet are discussed.

Cable-in-Conduit Dipoles to Enable a Future Hadron Collider

We report the development of a new approach to dipole technology, based upon cable-in-conduit conductor, that optimizes the cost and performance for a future ultimate-energy hadron collider. Optimization of cost for an ultimate-energy hadron collider is dominated by the strong dependence of magnet cost and synchrotron radiation power upon the dipole field strength. Assuming that the collider is built at a site with minimum tunnel cost, the projected total project cost is minimum for a ∼4 T dipole field. We present a novel option in which the double-ring of magnets is housed in a circular pipeline, submerged with neutral buoyancy at a depth ∼100 m in the sea. Such a collider inscribed in the Gulf of Mexico would provide hadron collisions at 500-TeV energy with a luminosity of 5 × 1035 cm−2s−1. We describe here the design of the dipole and of the pipeline cryostat that would contain it.

Molten salt considerations for accelerator-driven subcritical fission to close the nuclear fuel cycle

The host salt selection, molecular modeling, physical chemistry, and processing chemistry are presented here for an accelerator-driven subcritical fission in a molten salt core (ADSMS). The core is fueled solely with the transuranics (TRU) and long-lived fission products (LFP) from used nuclear fuel. The neutronics and salt composition are optimized to destroy the transuranics by fission and the long-lived fission products by transmutation. The cores are driven by proton beams from a strong-focusing cyclotron stack. One such ADSMS system can destroy the transuranics in the used nuclear fuel produced by a 1GWe conventional reactor. It uniquely provides a method to close the nuclear fuel cycle for green nuclear energy.