Energy in Transition, 1985-2010 Final Report of the Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems (1980) / Chapter Skim
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7 Controlled Nuclear Fusion
7 Controlled Nuclear Fusion
Pages 385-396
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From page 385... ...
. Only four long-term sources of energy have been projected for the future nuclear fusion, nuclear fission breeders, solar energy, and geothermal energy.
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From page 386... ...
FUSION FUEL CYCLES AND THE ENVIRONMENT The fusion reaction that requires the lowest temperature and the least effective containment, and offers the prospect of the highest power densities, is one of deuterium and tritium. D(deuterium)
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From page 387... ...
will be accurately known only after specific designs emerge and control technologies are tested at commercial scale. Based on today's knowledge, it appears possible, at a cost, to hold routine public exposures from fusion reactors to the same low levels as those from routine operation of light water fission reactors.
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From page 388... ...
This makes the conditions that must be achieved in the fusion core less demanding than those for a pure fusion reactor, but the additional engineering complexity of combining fusion and fission technologies in a single device will at least partly offset this advantage and may overwhelm it. The environmental and safety characteristics of hybrid devices would be substantially those of fission reactors, compounded by the addition of fusion's tritium and activation products.
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From page 389... ...
Magnetic fields, coupled to electric currents in the hot gas, generate forces that confine the fusion gas to a prepared vacuum space. The particular forms of microturbulence that limit plasma lifetimes and density depend on temperature and details of the configuration.
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From page 390... ...
The science of plasma physics and magnetic confinement has matured rapidly, aided by an unhindered program of international cooperation and exchange coordinated by the international Fusion Research Council (under the international Atomic Energy Agency)
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From page 391... ...
' ~ ~ Puluidnl ~~ A,. ~ .i :_, I ieid a: I I oruidal Axial l ield Current Toroidnl I ield Coil Metal Conducting Wall Resulting l leld FIGURE 7-1 A common type of Tokamak The current in the field coins generates a toroidal magmedc field the plasma current induced by the current in the coils produces a poloidal magmetic field, and these two fields combine to form a spiral magnetic field, stabilizing the plasma.
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From page 392... ...
The performance of available laser systems is far below that required for reactor purposes, although lasers adequate for proposed scientific breakeven experiments (creation of conditions that, in a reactor, could lead to net energy output) are nearing completion.
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From page 393... ...
In the competition among potential long-term energy sources, the main criteria for choices among alternatives are likely to be timing of availability, cost and reliability of delivered energy, versatility of application, and environmental and social acceptability A technology with major liabilities by any of these criteria, compared to the competition, presumably will have to offer major advantages by other criteria if it is to be extensively deployed. With respect to timing, fusion is far behind the fission breeder reactor, and it is behind at least some forms of solar energy technology.*
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From page 394... ...
Simply on the grounds of technological complexity, it seems likely that the capital costs of fusion power plants—and hence delivered energy costs—will be higher than those of fission breeder reactors. With respect to versatility of application, first-generation fusion reactors (those based on the D-T reaction)
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From page 395... ...
But will the program succeed? Scientific successes in raising temperatures and improving confinement must be balanced against the accumulating evidence that the technical One of the formidable difficulties for the nuclear fusion program to overcome is the tendency of groups working on some phase of complicated technology to use up design flexibility in the solution of their problems and leave impossible tasks for others.
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From page 396... ...
2~43. see also the report of the Fusion Assessment Resource Group of the Supply and Delivery Panel National Research Council, Supporting Paper 3 Controlled Nuclear Fusion: Current Research and Potential Progress, Committee on Nuclear and Aherrative Energy Systems, Supply and Delivery Panel, Fusion Assessment Resource Group (Washington, D C National Academy of Sciences, 1978)
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