Glossary

This Glossary gives terms employed in the text whose meaning may not be well know.

General

• Carbon Intensity: measure of carbon dioxide emissions in electricity generation.
• Availability, Capacity Factor: percentage of year power plant produces electricity.
• Sense of scale for electricity power plants: different technologies and different sizes.
• Watt (W), Kilowatt (KW); Kilowatt.hour (KWh), Terawatt.hour (TWh):  units of power and storage.
• Electronvolt (eV), Mega-electronvolt (MeV): units of energy, used for particles.
• Becquerel (Bq), Sievert (Sv), Milli-Sievert (mSv): units of radiation dose.
• Logarithmic Scale: Scale use for graphs when displaying data with a large range of values.

Nuclear Physics

• Nuclear Fission: operational nuclear power technology.
• Nuclear Fusion: possible future nuclear power technology. 
• Plasma: state of matter containing the ionized atoms in which the fusion reactions happen.
• Proton, neutron, electron, nucleus: subatomic particles.
• Elements: atoms with same number of protons in nucleus defining chemical properties.
• Isotope, radioisotope, deuterium, tritium: different forms of atoms with same number of protons. but different numbers of neutrons.
• Radioactivity: disintegration of nuclei with emission of radiation.
• Half-life, short-lived, long-lived: timescales of radioactive decay.
• Neutron activation: nuclear reaction making radioactive waste in fission and fusion reactors.
• Radiation damage: degradation of materials due to radiation, particularly serious for fusion. reactors
• LLW, ILW, HLW: Radioactive waste classification

Fusion Reactors

• Mainstream fusion: fusion technology with tokamaks using deuterium-tritium fuel.
• Fuels for fusion reactors: deuterium-tritium is the main fuel, but alternatives exist.
• Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF): main method in development for fusion reactors.
• Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF): alternative method for fusion using lasers to implode the fuel.
• Superconductivity: materials with zero electrical resistance used for magnets.
• Tokamak: most popular type of fusion reactor.
• Plasma disruption: rapid loss of plasma confinement leading to damage of tokamak.
• Vacuum Vessel, First Wall, Blanket, Divertor, RF Antenna, Cryostat: tokamak components.
• Limiters: components on first wall of tokamak to provide protection against plasma losses.
• Fusion power plant: tokamak reactor with systems to generate electricity.
• Stellarator: fusion reactor concept which predated tokamaks.
• Tore Supra: first tokamak with superconducting coils, operational 1998-2010.
• TFTR: first tokamak to operate with deuterium-tritium fuel, operational 1982-1997.
• NSTX-U: Latest Spherical Tokamak project at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
• JT-60SA: Latest Tokamak project in Japan.
• JET: largest operational tokamak, working since 1983.
• ITER: international project to build world's largest tokamak, construction started 2010.
• DEMO: projected first prototype fusion power plant with mainstream fusion technology.
• CFS: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, largest and most advanced private fusion company.
• Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN): regulatory authority in France responsible for all nuclear installations  including ITER.