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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
D. A. Ehst, J. N. Brooks, Y. Cha, K. Evans, Jr., A. M. Hassanein, S. Kim, S. Majumdar, B. Misra, H. C. Stevens
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 727-730
Power Reactor Studies | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40124
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Consideration of burn cycle options for commercial tokamaks shows that there is substantial motivation to achieve steady state operation. This is partly due to longer replacement periods for first wall and impurity control components, but, in addition, large cost savings are found when magnets, power supplies, and the energy transfer system are not frequently pulsed. The hybrid burn cycle, with a combination of ohmic and noninductive current drive, does not significantly improve the economics of ohmically-driven commercial reactors with large major radius. However, an INTOR-class device has a critically small hole in the doughnut, and we find for this size tokamak that the hybrid cycle is preferred over ohmically-driven operation.