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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.
John Galambos, Y.-K. M. Peng, John Haines
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 1196-1202
Fusion Power Reactor, Economic, and Alternate Concept | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40314
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We find minimum sized Spherical Tokamak (ST) configurations capable of Q∼1 (scientific break-even) and ignition. For Q∼1 cases, we normalize our models to the JET device. We find comparable plasma power balance performance in an ST configuration of major radius ∼ 0.7 m, using both global and 3/2 D plasma transport modeling. For ignited plasma, we first normalize the plasma modeling to the ITER device. We find similar ignited plasma performance capabilities in an ST configuration of major radius 1.2 m. These are much smaller size plasmas than the standard tokamak counterparts, indicating a potentially easier path towards commercial applications. Also, we find that the quantity IA is not a good figure-of-merit for comparing performance of widely different tokamak configurations.