This paper presents the roadmap of the main materials to be used for ITER and DEMO class reactors as well as an overview of the most relevant innovations
This report will introduce this technique, give an example of a practical design based on MCF, talk about its limitations and look forward to promising avenues
A new type of fusion technology that the company claims produces 100 times the power of other designs while costing just half as much to run.
To appreciate some of the key challenges, we examine magnetic confinement fusion energy from four perspectives: Technology, Economics, Fusion and Fission, and Politics and Progress. Imagine a large deuterium-tritium power reactor and its associated blanket producing electricity at a rate of 1,000 megawatts (roughly the size of nuclear fission plants and coal plants today), running 90 percent of the time, and converting into electricity 40 percent of the fusion energy produced in the plasma and blanket. The current stockpile of tritium from nuclear power plants may not be sufficient to launch the industry, in which case producing tritium for early fusion plants may become a new task for the world’s nuclear fission reactors over the coming decades. In a deuterium-tritium fusion plant, there is no equivalent of fission fragments or transformed fuel, but tritium itself is radioactive and, as with fission, neutron bombardment produces radioactive structural material.
PSFC researchers Dr. Alex Tinguely and Dr. Maria Gatu Johnson discuss the two leading approaches— magnetic confinement fusion and intertial
In the USA, at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where the first stellarators were built in 1951, construction on the NCSX stellerator was abandoned in 2008 due to cost overruns and lack of funding[2](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power#References "See Reference 2")[](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power). In the USA, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) operated at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) from 1982 to 1997.[d](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power#Notes "See Note d")[](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power) In December 1993, TFTR became the first magnetic fusion device to perform extensive experiments with plasmas composed of D-T. Using its 192 laser beams, NIF is able to deliver more than 60 times the energy of any previous laser system to its target[e](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power#Notes "See Note e")[](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power). d. The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has a webpage on TFTR[[Back](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power#d "Back")]. 1. Fusion Research: An Energy Option for Europe's Future, Directorate-General for Research, European Commission, 2007 (ISBN: 9279005138) [[Back](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power#Notes_of_b "Back")]. 4. LIFE: Clean Energy from Nuclear Waste page on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory website (www.llnl.gov) [[Back](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power#4 "Back")].
Illustrated cross section of a traditional doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion reactor. Tokamaks, such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, use electromagnetic fields to confine plasma and heat it to the temperatures and densities necessary to ignite fusion. Illustrated cutaway of a traditional doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion reactor. Illustrated cutaway of a traditional doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion reactor. Illustrated cutaway of the tokamak fusion reactor with particles spinning around the central solenoid. Illustrated cutaway of the tokamak fusion reactor with plasma spinning around the central solenoid. *5* • As the temperature rises, the density and energy within the plasma increase, causing particles to collide and initiate fusion. Illustrated cutaway of the tokamak fusion reactor with plasma spinning around the central solenoid. Illustrated cross section of a tokamak fusion reactor with plasma circulating around the central solenoid. All tokamaks confine the plasma using a central electric current that can make fusion reactions difficult to maintain**.
This powerful equation is at the center of fusion energy – the idea that light nuclei, e.g. deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen) can be smashed together to form particles, e.g. a neutron and a helium nuclei, of even smaller combined mass. By increasing the density of the hydrogen fuel through compression, we can increase the likelihood of fusion reactions to occur. A picture of a hydrogen fuel with deuterium and tritium in fusion relevant conditions. In a high temperature fuel undergoing fusion reactions, the velocities (shown as dashed arrows) of the nuclei are sufficiently large in magnitude to overcome the electric repulsion forces, **F**, between protons in the nuclei. Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) achieves fusion conditions by rapidly compressing and heating a small quantity of fusion fuel. Scientists at Sandia have now demonstrated experimentally that an ICF concept called Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) is capable of achieving thermonuclear fusion conditions on the Z machine (see sidebar).