Principal Overall Conclusions Sample Clauses

Principal Overall Conclusions. Fusion power stations have extremely low levels of fuel inventory in the burning chamber, their power production stops with no fuelling and they have very low levels of after burn power density. They will make no use of any fissile material, and will not emit any of the greenhouse gases. With appropriate design, these favourable inherent features can be exploited to provide substantial safety and environmental advantages. Studies performed within the European Fusion Programme have shown that it would be possible to design commercial fusion power stations with the following features. • The maximum radiological doses to the public arising from the most severe conceivable accident driven by in-plant energies would be well below the level at which evacuation would be considered and would be comparable to typical annual doses from natural causes. • After a few decades, the total radiotoxic potential of the activated material arising from the operation and decommissioning of the plant will have decreased to a low value. • Most, perhaps all, of this material, after remaining in situ for a few decades, may, if desired, be cleared or recycled, with little, or no, need for repository disposal (the remote handling technology of recycling has still to be developed and its economics assessed). These studies have confirmed and expanded earlier findings that the safety and environmental advantages would not all accrue solely from factors inherent to the fusion process itself, but depend also upon appropriate plant design. The results and lessons learnt from these studies can form inputs to future activities to design reference attractive fusion power stations.