Occupational doses and impact on fusion economics

As part of the SEAFP-99 programme, water cooled and helium cooled fusion po wer plant design concepts were assessed with regard to occupational doses a nd related availability and operating costs. Different design and managemen t measures to reduce occupational doses were considered. This task assessed the existing designs and proposed extensions or changes, where required. F or each significant contributor, possible methods were specified which coul d reduce the operator dose and outage time. Where this was the case expecte d; costs or savings incurred by the improvement were estimated. Overall, th e use of a system to remove particulate corrosion product activity from the primary coolant was considered essential for the water-cooled variant. In addition, application of the most up-to-date ALARA techniques could make th e estimated dose for the water-cooled conceptual design appreciably lower t han earlier estimated. It was concluded that the water cooled conceptual de sign could meet the project design target for occupational dose of 0.7 p-Sv per GW(e). A survey of occupational doses from the UK AGR plants was also carried out. From this, it is judged that the helium cooled fusion plant co nceptual design could meet the project design target for occupational dose of 0.7 p-Sv per GW(e) without the need for additional plant to reduce prima ry coolant activity levels. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.