ARLINGTON, Va., March 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the U.S. government considers fusion power to help keep America secure and competitive, the cleanliness, safety, and promise of nearly limitless energy supply of this power generation method naturally makes headlines. However, with viable fusion tokamak reactors nearing reality, thanks to projects like Kronos Fusion's deep learning design and testing simulations, its superior security proves added advantage of fusion over fission.
Current fission reactors depend on uranium enrichment to function. Ordinary uranium lacks the isotope concentration needed for practical fission, about 3% to 5% compared to natural uranium's 0.7% concentration. Running fission reactors requires additional facilities to enrich uranium, using dangerous, polluting, expensive methods like gas centrifuges or tunable photo-ionizing lasers to greatly increase the density of U235 isotopes in uranium fuel.
Reactors are known to be a target for any hostile nation. Uranium enrichment adds extra vulnerability to fission power since shutting down enrichment facilities through sabotage or attack starves reactors of fissile material.
A recent Middle Eastern event highlights the weakness. Iran restarted its uranium enrichment program on April 10, 2021, using freshly built, advanced hexafluoride gas centrifuges at Natanz facility in Isfahan Province. Less than 24 hours later, on April 11, an explosion and fire at the site decisively halted Iran's uranium enrichment.
Iranians initially believed the explosion was accidental, they soon blamed sabotage executed by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. Ayatollah Khomeini's government said the blast destroyed or put out of action a "large number" of centrifuges. Iran says it's building new centrifuge halls at deeper subterranean levels where it hopes they'll be less vulnerable to attack, with a speculative date of resumed operations in 2022.
Israeli press also ascribed the explosion to Mossad sabotage. While Israel's government offered no official confirmation, The Jerusalem Post quoted IDF Lieutenant General Aviv Kohavi after the incident, "by virtue of clever operational activities, the past year was one of the most secure years that citizens of the State of Israel have known," likely referring to April 11's physical sabotage and July 2020 explosion, causing a shutdown at Natanz.
Likely Mossad raids on Iran show uranium enrichment dependence, creating a significant vulnerability to foreign or domestic sabotage for any country. It isn't necessary to hit reactors themselves to seriously disrupt fission operations. Fusion energy is free of this weak point, potentially requiring no more than highly abundant, non-polluting deuterium, a hydrogen isotope, to run.
Kronos Fusion plans to give America a significant lead on rivals like China with the quantum computing and machine learning simulations to operate at its Fusion Energy Commercialization Centers. Working on rapidly developing successful fusion reactor design solutions with paralleled analysis and simulation, Kronos' project aims for a major near-future boost to this key technology. If successful, this will free America from the vulnerable, polluting technological shackles of uranium enrichment, instead achieving safe, clean, secure, and practically limitless fusion energy generation.
PR Contact: ErinPendleton - pr@kronosfusionenergy.com
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