Burning Plasma Bringing a Star to Earth (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix E: Committee's Interim Report
Appendix E: Committee's Interim Report
Pages 156-168
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E Committee's Interim Report 156
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to report in December on two aspects of its charge and to comment on whether the United States should reenter the negotiations on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) , an international burning plasma experiment.1 This interim report, submitted in response to that urgent request, addresses only two aspects -- the importance of a burning plasma experiment for fusion energy and the scientific and technical readiness to undertake a burning plasma experiment -- and offers advice on entering ITER negotiations.
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noted that experimental investigation of a burning plasma remains a grand challenge for plasma physics and a necessary step in the development of fusion energy.2 In light of the need to accomplish that step and of the significant advances over the last decade in the understanding of magnetically confined plasmas and in improved designs for burning plasma experiments, the committee recommends that the U.S. fusion program participate in a burning plasma experiment.
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Relation to Existing Fusion Energy Science Program Conclusion No. 6 from the 2002 Snowmass Fusion Summer Study states that a strong base science and technology program is needed to advance essential fusion science and technology and to participate effectively in, and benefit from, the burning plasma effort.5 All presenters to the committee indicated the need to maintain a strong core program, illustrated by the FESAC recommendation that a strong core science and technology program is essential to the success of the burning plasma effort, as well as to the overall development of fusion energy.6 Further, the FUSAC report noted that a fusion research program must investigate a range of confinement approaches and that it is the combined progress made in science and engineering that will determine the pace of advancement toward the energy goal.
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Maintaining such a program will necessitate a very large increase in total funding of the order presented to the committee. An expanded fusion program would be needed to participate in ITER, maintain the necessary activities in the domestic program, and position the United States to reap the maximum benefit from the scientific and technological progress that will come from both the ITER program and the DOE's Office of Fusion Energy Science core program.
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Thus a balanced fusion program -- a burning plasma experiment plus the OFES core program -- that develops the science and technology of a range of fusion confinement configurations and of burning plasma is essential. In this section, the committee explores the critical motivations for the proposed experiments by summarizing the importance of a burning plasma experiment for fusion energy sciences and technology and for fusion as an energy source.
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While these fluctuations have been studied experimentally using externally generated energetic ions, the space and energy distribution of these ions and their anisotropy are significantly different from those of fusion-generated alpha particles, modifying the fluctuations and their impact on the fast ion confinement. Extrapolation from present experiments to the effective size of a full energy-producing reactor entails substantial uncertainty, which can, however, be reduced by studying a burning plasma experiment.
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This technique accurately projects energy loss rates in existing tokamak experiments and has been used successfully in 7Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) Panel Report, Review of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, Appendix D, April 18,1997, Washington D.C., available online at |
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its goal of producing 10 times more power via fusion reactions in the plasma than the input power used to heat the plasma. Of course a major feature of a burning plasma experiment is the possibility of new nonlinear interactions between the heating from the fusion-produced fast alpha particles and the plasma equilibrium.
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Such techniques have been developed. There is good confidence that the proposed burning plasma experiment will achieve the key goal of studying the burning plasma regime -- that, is that the self heating from the fusion reaction will exceed the heating from external power sources -- based on operation in a conventional high-confinement (H-mode)
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Significant research into the use 11Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) Panel Report, Review of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, April 18,1997, Washington D.C., available online at |
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Conclusion The committee agrees with the conclusions of the recent studies -- namely, that the scientific and technical bases for proceeding with a burning plasma experiment have been established. Recent theoretical and experimental progress in understanding and controlling tokamak plasmas and progress in 11
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fusion program and one the committee has found to be of great scientific and technological value. The committee recommends that, subject to the conditions listed herein, the United States enter ITER negotiations while the strategy for an expanded U.S.
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