Fusion Fire Powers the Sun

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Fusion Fire Powers the Sun
Can we make Fusion Fire on earth?
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Creating and Controlling a Fusion Fire in the
Laboratory
Dale Meade Princeton, Plasma Physics
Laboratory Division of Plasma Physical
Society Korean Physical Society Jeju,
Korea October 23, 2004
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Topics to be Discussed

• Need for Fusion
• Vision for Magnetic Fusion Power Plant
• Requirements and Critical Issues for Magnetic
  Fusion
• Recent Progress
• Requirements for a Fusion Fire Test
• Status of Plans for Building a Fusion Fire
• Concluding Remarks

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The Case for New Sources of Energy

• Increasing evidence that release of greenhouse
  gases is causing global climate change
• World population increases and demand for
  economic development require a large increase in
  worldwide energy production
• Most population growth is in urban areas
• Implies need for large, centralized power
  generation
• Worldwide oil and gas production is near peak or
  past
• Secure energy supply with low cost and wide
  availability is needed for all countries
• A portfolio of alternative energy sources is
  required including fusion.

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Fusion Reactions
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(plasma pressure)2
Need 10 atmospheres _at_ 10 keV
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Toroidal Magnetic Confinement
TOKAMAK (Russian abbreviation for toroidal
chamber with magnetic fields) includes an
induced toroidal plasma current to form, heat and
confine the plasma
Charged particles have helical orbits in a
magnetic field they describe circular orbits
perpendicular to the field with gyro-radius
rlv?/?, where ?qB/mc
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What is Inside a Tokamak?
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ARIES Economic Studies have Defined the Plasma
Requirements for an Attractive Fusion Power Plant
Plasma Exhaust Pheat/Rx 100MW/m Helium
Pumping Tritium Retention
High Gain Q 25 - 50 ntET 6x1021
m-3skeV Pa/Pheat fa 90
Plasma Control Fueling Current Drive RWM
Stabilization
High Power Density Pf/V 6 MW-3 10 atm Gn 4
MWm-2
Steady-State 90 Bootstrap
Significant advances are needed in each area.
High gain, high power density and steady-state
are the critical issues.
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Critical Issue 1- High Fusion Gain
(confinement) FIRE and ITER Require Modest (2.5
to 4.5) Extrapolation

• Tokamaks have established a solid basis for
  confinement scaling of the diverted H-Mode.
• BtE is the dimensionless metric for confinement
  time projection
• ntET is the dimensional metric for fusion
  - ntET
  bB2tE bB . BtE
• ARIES-RS Power Plants require BtE only slightly
  larger than FIRE due high b and B.

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Attractive Reactor Regime Needs Highish b and B
Modification of JT60-SC Figure
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Critical Issue 2 - High Power Densities
Requires Significant (x10) Extrapolation in
Plasma Pressure
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Steps to a Fusion Demo
Fusion Fire
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KSTAR TokamakTaejon, S. KOREA

• New Generation Advanced Tokamak
• Latest physics ideas in design and systems to
  control plasma
• Long pulses up to 300s
• Superconducting coils but without a burning
  plasma
• Comparable in size to largest experiments of
  today
• first plasma tests in late 2006

R 1.8 m, B 3.5 T, Ip 2 MA,
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Two Furnaces for Testing a Fusion Fire
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor) Discussions started in 1985
Demonstrate scientific and technical feasibility
of fusion Six party international partnership
(JA,EU,RF,US,CN,ROK) To be built in Japan or
France (Cost 5B) Under negotiation (
decision expected by December 2004) FIRE (Fusion
Ignition Research Experiment) Lowest cost
approach for creating and controlling fusion
fire International Collaboration lead by the
US To be built in the US (Cost 1B)
Under design as back up, put forward if no ITER
decision
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The Fusion Fire Step to a Fusion Power Plant
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Fusion Development Considerations for FIRE
Address key physics issues for an advanced
reactor burning plasma scenarios similar to
ARIES controlled burn of high power density
plasma with Q gt5, fBS 80 Focus technology
on areas coupled to the plasma high power
density plasmas plasma facing
components plasma control technologies
Limit scope/size/cost of the device size
comparable to todays largest tokamaks to reduce
cost only integrate items that are strongly
coupled plasma-PFCs
These are some of the biggest challenges for
fusion, success in these areas would lead to an
attractive Demo.
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Advanced Toroidal Physics (100 Non-inductively
Driven AT-Mode) Q 5 as target, higher Q not
precluded fbs Ibs/Ip 80 as target,
ARIES-RS/AT90 bN 4.0, n 1 wall stabilized,
RWM feedback
Quasi-Stationary Burn Duration (use plasma time
scales) Pressure profile evolution and burn
control 20 to 40 tE Alpha ash
accumulation/pumping 4 to 8 tHe Plasma current
profile redistribution 2 to 5 tCR Divertor
pumping and heat removal 15 to 30 tdivertor
First wall heat removal gt 1 tfirst-wall
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Fusion Ignition Research Experiment (FIRE)

• R 2.14 m, a 0.595 m
• B 10 T, ( 6.5 T, AT)
• Ip 7.7 MA, ( 5 MA, AT)
• PICRF 20 MW
• PLHCD 30 MW (Upgrade)
• Pfusion 150 MW
• Q 10, (5 - 10, AT)
• Burn time 20s (2 tCR - Hmode)
• 40s (lt 5 tCR - AT)
• Tokamak Cost 350M (FY02)
• Total Project Cost 1.2B (FY02)

1,400 tonne LN cooled coils
Mission to attain, explore, understand and
optimize magnetically-confined fusion-dominated
plasmas
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FIRE is Based on ARIES-RS Vision

• 40 scale model of ARIES-RS plasma
• ARIES-like all metal PFCs
• Actively cooled W divertor
• Be tile FW, cooled between shots
• Close fitting conducting structure
• ARIES-level toroidal field
• LN cooled BeCu/OFHC TF
• ARIES-like current drive technology
• FWCD and LHCD (no NBI/ECCD)
• No momentum input
• Site needs comparable to previous
• DT tokamaks (TFTR/JET).
• T required/pulse TFTR 0.3g-T

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Steady-State High-b Advanced Tokamak Discharge
on FIRE
0 1 2
3 4
time,(current redistributions)
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FIRE AT Mode Pulse Length is not Limited by Cu
Coils
Nominal operating point Q 5 Pf 150 MW,
Pf/Vp 5.5 MWm-3 (ARIES) steady-state
4 to 5 tCR Physics basis improving (ITPA)
required confinement H factor and bN
attained transiently C-Mod LHCD experiments
will be very important First Wall is the main
limit not TF Improve cooling revisit FW
design
Opportunity for additional improvement.
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ITER and FIRE Advanced Tokamak Operating Modes
Pose Challenges for Plasma Technology
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Status and Plans for FIRE
FIRE has made significant progress in
increasing physics and engineering capability
since the Snowmass/FESAC recommendations of
2002. FIRE successfully passed the DOE Physics
Validation Review (PVR) in March 2004. The FIRE
team is on track for completing the
pre-conceptual design within FY 04. They will
then be ready to launch the conceptual design.
The product of their work, and their
contributions to and leadership within the
overall burning plasma effort, is stellar. -
PVR Panel Most of the FIRE resources were
transferred to US - ITER activities in late 2003.
The resources remaining in 2005 will focus on
development of advanced capabilities for ITER -
e.g., integrated AT modes, high power PFCs.
The present US plan assumes that a decision to
construct ITER is imminent. If an agreement on
ITER is not attained, FIRE is ready, to be put
forward as recommended by FESAC.
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ITER has been designed, now ready to build
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Sharing of construction costs has been agreed

• CN magnet supports,feeders, correction coils,
  conductors, blanket (0.2), cryostat, gas
  injection, casks (0.5), HV substation, AC/DC
  (0.35), diag.
• EU TF(0.5), conductors, cassette and outer
  target, vac.pumps, div. RH, casks (0.5), isotope
  sep., IC, EC, diag.
• JA TF(0.5), conductors, inner target, blanket
  RH, EC, diag.
• KO conductors, vessel ports (0.67), blanket
  (0.2), assembly tools, thermal shield, T storage,
  AC/DC (0.65), diag.
• RF PF1, conductors, vessel ports (0.33), blanket
  (0.2), port limiters, flexibles, dome and PFC
  tests, Discharge circuits, EC, diag.
• US CS(0.5), conductors, blanket (0.1),
  vac.pumps, pellet inj., vessel/in-vessel cooling,
  tok exh. proc., IC, EC, diag.

• Host provides Buildings and Utilities. Remaining
  allocation (AB) depends on site and final
  agreement.
• Fund (10) Feeders, Shielding, viewing, NB RH,
  Hot cell eq., cryo dist., CODAC, installation and
  test, other sundry items

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ITER site needs to be decidedCadarache (France)
or Rokkasho (Japan)?
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Concluding Remarks
Magnetic Fusion has made remarkable progress
during the past decade and has achieved
fusion fuel temperatures of 500 million degrees
C fusion power production of 16 million
watts fuel density x confinement 50 of
that needed for ignition better
understanding of plasma confinement and
stability More important than ever to find out
if fusion can be an energy source for the
world. Magnetic Fusion is now ready to take the
crucial step of building and testing a
fusion fire in the laboratory two attractive
options (ITER and FIRE) are available a
decision on ITER is expected within months if
a decision can not be reached on ITER, FIRE could
be built to create, control and optimize a
fusion fire in the laboratory. Thanks for your
interest. More info at http//fire.pppl.gov
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We will also need fusion at night..
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