Biological Shielding & Site Safety

Biological shielding protects workers and the public from radiation during operation. A low-neutron plant needs less of it and poses no evacuation-scale risk.

Job

Protect people from operational radiation

Driven by

Neutron and gamma flux

Kronos

Low-neutron → lighter shielding burden

Accident profile

No runaway; no large evacuation zone

Biological shielding is the concrete and specialized material that protects workers and the public from the neutron and gamma radiation a reactor produces while it runs. It is separate from the magnet shield: the magnet shield protects hardware, biological shielding protects people. Its thickness is driven by the radiation flux escaping the core.

Two features ease this for Kronos MetroVolt. First, being low-neutron reduces the flux that must be shielded against, lightening the burden. Second, and more fundamentally, fusion's safety physics — no chain reaction, seconds of fuel on hand, passive shutdown — means there is no credible accident that disperses large amounts of radioactivity, so there is no fission-style emergency evacuation zone. Shielding protects against routine operation, not a runaway.