Fusion reactor design studies: standard unit costs and cost scaling rules

Abstract

This report establishes standard unit costs and scaling rules for estimating costs of material, equipment, land, and labor components used in magnetic confinement fusion reactor plant construction and operation. Use of the standard unit costs and scaling rules will add uniformity to cost estimates, and thus allow valid comparison of the economic characteristics of various reactor concepts .

The spheromak as a compact fusion reactor

“…The impact of physics and technology on the cost of fusion power is illustrated graphically on Fig to the cost accounting system used in the fission-power industry 20 and adopted to characterize fusion-power systems. 21 ' 22 The major components of the total direct cost are conveniently divided into two major cost categories: Reactor For fusion power plants invoking more-or-less conventional BOPs (i.e., steambased conversion systems with gross conversion efficiencies of f^ = 0.35-0.40), the RPE for the early fusion power plant designs 1 " 10 alone represented > 50% of the total direct cost, with the FPC requiring 25-30% of all direct expenditures; these percentages compare to ~ 30% and < 5%, respectively, for identical accounts in a typical light-water fission reactor (LWR). 25 Table 1.1.-I summarizes the major costs for a number of earlier fusion power-plant designs, as well as recently improved designs based either on innovative approaches to the tokamak 24 or extensions from non-tokamak concepts 25 " 27 ; a normalized comparison to the pressurized-water fission reactor, PWR 23 , is also included.…”

“…The CRFPR design 26 dealt with the power shed by the plasma (ohmic and alpha-particle power) using in situ water-cooled pumped limiters which, in This costing formalism assumes a "tenth-of-a-kind" plant, which is appropriate for most of the balance of plant, but may be unrealistic for the FPC. Unit costs for the first wall, blanket, shield, and magnet coils are based upon present-day expectations, leading to unit costs that are at least a factor of two greater than the MFE costing guidelines 21 as originally used in STARFIRE. 4 The construction time, cost, and schedule are presumed similar to the STARFIRE design, 4 which for the CSR should be correspondingly optimistic considering the physically smaller system and a greater opportunity for off-site factory fabrication.…”

“…EconomicsEconomic guidelines recommended 4 ' 20 '21 to assure uniformity of comparisons among fusion reactor studies serve as the basis for the costing framework used in the CSR study. The costing guidelines describe uniform accounting categories and procedures, as summarized in Table3.5.-I, which also gives details of the cost database.…”

Parametric systems analysis of the modular stellarator reactor

“…Costs have been adjusted to 1980 dollars. The UDC values given here do not include indirect costs (typically 23%), interest during construction (IDC), or escalation during construction (EDC) [25]. Reactor unit costs have been normalized using a 0.4 power law to a common net electric output PNET = 1000 MW(e).…”