Magnetic Fusion Energy

From Experiments to Power Plants

George Neilson

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780081003268
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Nuclear Physics

Magnetic Fusion Energy: From Experiments to Power Plants is a timely exploration of the field, giving readers an understanding of the experiments that brought us to the threshold of the ITER era, as well as the physics and technology research needed to take us beyond ITER to commercial fusion power plants.

With the start of ITER construction, the world's magnetic fusion energy (MFE) enterprise has begun a new era. The ITER scientific and technical (S&T) basis is the result of research on many fusion plasma physics experiments over a period of decades.

Besides ITER, the scope of fusion research must be broadened to create the S&T basis for practical fusion power plants, systems that will continuously convert the energy released from a burning plasma to usable electricity, operating for years with only occasional interruptions for scheduled maintenance.

• Provides researchers in academia and industry with an authoritative overview of the significant fusion energy experiments
• Considers the pathway towards future development of magnetic fusion energy power plants
• Contains experts contributions from editors and others who are well known in the field

Part One

Magnetic fusion issues

Outline

1. Introduction: The journey to magnetic fusion energy

2. Plasma performance, burn and sustainment

3. Plasma exhaust

4. Power extraction and tritium self-sufficiency

1

Introduction

The journey to magnetic fusion energy

G.H. Neilson Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States

Abstract

Remarkable scientific and technical progress has been made in fusion energy research, a global enterprise that has been under way for more than 65 years. Although the time scale for commercial realization of fusion energy remains uncertain, its potential to address the world’s need for large-scale clean energy solutions motivates strong support for fusion research in many countries. The decision to construct ITER, an experiment to explore the science and technology of a burning plasma, marks a watershed in fusion history and the start of the ITER era. The book introduces the major science and technology issues for magnetic fusion energy systems, and explores the progress in the field by examining the contributions to fusion understanding from experimental machines, both leading up to the ITER era, and continuing as the ITER facility is constructed. The book describes some key technological developments and provides one example of a fusion power plant design.

Keywords

Fusion DEMO; Fusion history; Fusion plasma experiments; ITER; Magnetic fusion energy; Nuclear fusion

The promise of clean and essentially unlimited energy from nuclear fusion has inspired a global research enterprise that has now been under way for more than 65 years. This period, the second half of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century, has seen rapid advances in science and technology with huge public impact—in aerospace, nuclear power, computers, medicine, and many other fields. Society, for a time, became accustomed to the idea that with enough investment, human genius and creativity could conquer large-scale technological challenges on roughly the timescale of a generation. Commercial fusion energy, in contrast, while not lacking in any of these ingredients, remains a distant goal; its development timescale is sure to pass the century mark, and its rate of penetration into the future global energy economy is highly uncertain. The journey, it turns out, is a long one.

Why such a gloomy introduction to a book about fusion, written by dedicated fusion researchers who are passionately committed to its ultimate success? The reason is to acknowledge, at the outset, an inescapable fact: fusion is difficult. Viewed from that perspective, society's sustained commitment to fusion over so many years is remarkable. The field continues to attract men and women who are motivated to confront the challenges of difficult problems, whether in plasma science, materials science, fusion technology, or engineering, and to have the opportunity to make progress and have an impact on an important enterprise. Fusion receives support from policy makers and funding appropriators in many countries for a host of reasons, but all tied in some way to the realization that the world's need for large-scale clean energy solutions is so great that the fusion's potential must be thoroughly understood, demonstrated, and evaluated. Most importantly, fusion research and development continues to make impressive scientific and technical progress in the face of formidable challenges. That is what this book is about.

Magnetic fusion research crossed a watershed in the first decade of the 21st century with an agreement by the European Union, Japan, China, Russia, India, South Korea, and the United States to build ITER, an experimental project to explore the science and technology of maintaining fusion conditions in a plasma self-heated by its own fusion power, that is, a burning plasma. We can pinpoint a watershed moment on November 21, 2006, the date the ITER agreement was signed in Paris by all seven parties, but in reality the line that was crossed was wide and gray, not sharp and black. The decades leading up to the ITER agreement were marked by research progress across a broad spectrum of fusion topics, much of it achieved through plasma physics experimentation in magnetic fusion machines. As the ITER design came into focus throughout the 1990s, the global fusion community responded by sharpening its research focus on topics that were the most critical for securing the scientific and technical basis for ITER's design. From that perspective, the amassing of a scientific knowledge base sufficient to justify construction of a huge international experiment that will take fusion into the burning plasma regime is an accomplishment that must be viewed as a capstone of the first half-century of fusion research.

Having crossed into what could be called the “ITER Era,” the fusion community has begun to tackle the next set of challenges on the journey to commercial fusion. Most prominent among these challenges, of course, are the construction of the ITER experiment itself and the successful achievement of its burning plasma mission. With the international ITER project team now manufacturing the massive components that will be assembled to form the core tokamak device and developing the supporting infrastructure on the Cadarache, France site, fusion researchers continue to train their experiments toward topics critical to ITER, now prototyping plasma control solutions that will be usable on ITER to optimize its performance and to maint...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Related titles
• Copyright
• List of contributors
• Woodhead Publishing Series in Energy
• Part One. Magnetic fusion issues
• Part Two. Experiments: scientific foundations for ITER
• Part Three. Experiments: developing the basis for going beyond ITER
• Part Four. Key technological elements of magnetic fusion energy power plants and future fusion power plants
• Index