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Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
J. Ongena, A. M. Messiaen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 2 | February 2012 | Pages 413-420
Status of Fusion | Proceedings of the Tenth Carolus Magnus Summer School on Plasma and Fusion Energy Physics | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13528
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The total amount of heating power coupled to the plasma Ptot and the energy confinement time are determining parameters for realizing the plasma conditions suitable for the reactor. We recall that the ignition condition can be expressed by the following condition on the triple fusion product:nT = Ptot2/3Vol = 3n2T2Vol/Ptot > (nT)ignition (1)where = E/Ptot is the energy confinement time, E = 3nT Vol for an isothermal plasma with Ti = Te = T and a plasma volume Vol; n is the plasma density. The value T = 15 keV corresponds to the minimum value of (nT)ignition as a function T (see Fig. 1). In the present discussion for the sake of simplicity, we neglect density and temperature profile factors. The heating power in most of the present experiments is given by Ptot = POH + Padd where POH is the ohmic power and Padd is the additional heating due to neutral beam injection or radiofrequency heating. At ignition, the additional heating power must come completely from the energetic α-particles produced by the fusion reactions and we must have Ptot = P if we neglect the residual POH and the plasma losses by Bremsstrahlung (PBr [is proportional to] n2[square root]T).