Waste assessment of European DEMO fusion reactor designs

Gilbert, Mark R.; Eade, T.; Bachmann, C.; Fischer, U.; Taylor, Neill

doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2017.12.019

Cited by 27 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We haven't costed managing the nuclear waste for fusion power here, but support the intention for fusion technology to have no high level waste after 100 years (i.e. after the iron and cobalt isotopes have decayed) [26,11,27,204] which brings public support for nuclear fusion power with it and remains essential [205].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In high aspect ratio reactors of the type considered here (similar to ITER and EU-DEMO), robotics/crane systems can in principle be employed to extract the remountable CS and TF coils if they become damaged because they see little neutron flux due to thick radiation shielding (for example most EU-DEMO coils will be considered Non-Active-Waste at end of life [26,11,27]). The requirements on remote handling (RH) for coils alone, are therefore not particularly demanding in the designs considered in this paper.…”

Section: Robotics Remountable Magnets and Jointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our PROCESS simulations the insulation is 1.5 mm thick. Making explicit our use of Ampere's law [165], we can write: (11) where I resistive turn and I preferred turn are the coils' currents per turn on the resistive reactor and the preferred choice reactor and B preferred plasma and B resistive plasma are the magnetic fields on plasma axis of the preferred choice reactor and resistive reactor respectively. The maximum current per resistive magnet turn was calculated using…”

Section: Aluminium/copper Tokamak Power Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Once nuclear (i.e. D-T) operation has begun, the activation in the reactor vessel would be so high that, given there is no robotic control of magnet replacement, it would probably not be cost-effective to replace a TF coil [11]. Unfortunately all the very high field superconductors that we need in full operation for optimal (profitable) commercial fusion are brittle, and the largest Nb 3 Sn fusion magnets ever produced to-date (by size or weight) were resistive when first turned on [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Training and Upgrading Tokamak Power Plants with Remountable Superconducting Magnets

L.¹,

Surrey²,

Naish³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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All high field superconductors producing magnetic fields above 12 T are brittle. Nevertheless, they will probably be the materials of choice in commercial tokamaks because the fusion power density in a tokamak scales as the fourth power of magnetic field. Here we propose using robust, ductile superconductors during the reactor commissioning phase in order to avoid brittle magnet failure while operational safety margins are being established. Here we use the PROCESS systems code to inform development strategy and to provide detailed capital-cost-minimised tokamak power plant designs. We propose building a 'demonstrator' tokamak with an electric power output of 100 MW e , a plasma fusion gain Q plasma = 17, a net gain Q net = 1.3, a cost of electricity (COE) of $ 1148 (2021 US) per MW h (at 75 % availability) and high temperature superconducting operational TF magnets producing 5.4 T on-axis and 12.5 T peak-field. It uses Nb-Ti training magnets and will cost about $ 9.75 Bn (2021 US). An equivalent 500 MW e plant has a COE of $ 608 per MW suggesting that large tokamaks may eventually dominate the commercial market. We consider a range of designs optimised for capital cost (as the reactors considered are pilot plants) consisting of both 100 MW e and 500 MW e plants with each of two approaches for the magnets: training and upgrading. With training magnets, the plant is cost-optimised for REBCO TF magnets. For a 100 MW e plant, the Nb-Ti training magnets typically produce 70 % peak field on the toroidal field coils compared to REBCO magnets, 65 % peak field on the central solenoid and cost ≈ 10 % of the total machine cost. Training magnets could in principle be reused for each of say 10 subsequent (commercial) machines and hence at 1 % bring only marginal additional cost. With upgrade magnets the plant is more expensive -first it is cost-optimised for Nb-Ti and then upgraded to REBCO coils. The upgrade increases the net electrical output from 100 to 280 MW e with an ≈ 25 % increase in reactor capital cost. We also evaluate likely advances in fusion technology and find that technologies on the horizon will probably not bring further large reductions in capital cost, and that REBCO magnets are generally stress-limited rather than current density limited. We conclude that: the fusion community should develop high B c2 alloys specifically for fusion applications; superconductors should be tested under operational-like radiation at cryogenic temperatures; and that we should proceed now with detailed design and construction of a prototype fusion power plant that integrates and de-risks all the key technologies including high temperature superconducting cables and joints using remountable training magnets, and hence is the last tokamak before commercialisation of fusion energy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Robotics Remountable Magnets and Jointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aluminium/copper Tokamak Power Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Training and Upgrading Tokamak Power Plants with Remountable Superconducting Magnets

L.¹,

Surrey²,

Naish³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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show abstract

“…activation criterion and hence only be classified as low-level waste (LLW) [64,[68][69][70][71][72]. EUROFER97 reduced-activation steel is the leading fusion structural material that was designed by the Eurofusion effort [73] and has been chosen as the neutron-facing structural material in the EU-DEMO1 reactor design [10].…”

Section: Waste Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-examining the role of nuclear fusion in a renewables-based energy mix

et al. 2021

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Fusion energy is often regarded as a long-term solution to the world's energy needs. However, even after solving the critical research challenges, engineering and materials science will still impose significant constraints on the characteristics of a fusion power plant. Meanwhile, the global energy grid must transition to low-carbon sources by 2050 to prevent the worst effects of climate change. We review three factors affecting fusion's future trajectory: (1) the significant drop in the price of renewable energy, (2) the intermittency of renewable sources and implications for future energy grids, and (3) the recent proposition of intermediate-level nuclear waste as a product of fusion. Within the scenario assumed by our premises, we find that while there remains a clear motivation to develop fusion power plants, this motivation is likely weakened by the time they become available. We also conclude that most current fusion reactor designs do not take these factors into account and, to increase market penetration, fusion research should consider relaxed nuclear waste design criteria, raw material availability constraints and load-following designs with pulsed operation.

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Fusion—Safety and Environmental Considerations

Taylor

2021

Encyclopedia of Nuclear Energy

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Waste assessment of European DEMO fusion reactor designs

Cited by 27 publications

References 9 publications

Training and Upgrading Tokamak Power Plants with Remountable Superconducting Magnets

Training and Upgrading Tokamak Power Plants with Remountable Superconducting Magnets

Re-examining the role of nuclear fusion in a renewables-based energy mix

Fusion—Safety and Environmental Considerations

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