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Ca9110926 ALTERNATE FUSION CONCEPTS ///////// •'•7//.' Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project ca9110926 ALTERNATE FUSION CONCEPTS: STATUS AND PLANS CFFTP-G-9009 October 1990 P.J. Gierszewski, A.A. Harms* and S.B. Nickerson' ALTERNATE FUSION CONCEPTS: STATUS AND PLANS CFFTP-G-9009 October 1990 P.J. Gierszewski, A.A. Harms* and S.B. Nickerson' McMaster University Ontario Hydro Research Division CFFTP-G-9009 Prepared by: P.J. GierszewskiO Fusion Systems Engineer Fuel Systems & Materials Development Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project Reviewed by: Manager Fuel Systems & Materials Development Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project Approved by: D.P. Dautovich Program Manager Canadian Fusion Fuels Technology Project ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to the research groups at Los Alamos National Laboratory CTR Division (HDZP, CPRF, ZT-40, FRX-C, CTX), Spectra Technologies (LSX), Naval Research Laboratory (ZFX), University of Maryland (MS), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ATF), Imperial College (HZP), Institut Gas lonizzati (RFX) and University of Stuttgart (DPF), who showed us their facilities, clarified the key issues, and discussed their results and program plans. We also particularly wish to thank D. Rej (LANL), A. Robson (NRL), R. Krakowski (LANL), P. Stangeby (UTIAS), J. Linhart (U. Pisa), M. Peng (ORNL) and G. Miley (U. Illinois) who kindly reviewed specific sections of the report. ALTERNATE FUSION CONCEPTS STATUS AND PLANS Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Advanced Tokamaks 3 3. Stellarator 11 4. Spherical Torus 18 5. Reversed-Field Pinch 24 6. Dense Z-Pinch 32 7. Field-Reversed Configuration 38 8. Spheromak 45 9. Ignition Experiments and Reactors 9.1 Ignition 52 9.2 Reactors 53 Appendix A: Other Concepts 62 A.1 Colliding Beam Fusion (Migma) 62 A.2 Electrostatic Confinement 63 A.3 Muon-Catalyzed Fusion 64 A.4 Spherical Pinch 64 A.5 Dense Plasma Focus 65 A.6 Linear Systems 66 A.7 Miscellaneous Concepts 67 Appendix B: Inertial Confinement 75 1. ALTERNATE FUSION CONCEPTS: STATUS AND PLANS 1.0 INTRODUCTION The focus of the world's fusion program is on tokamaks and lasers. These devices have advanced fusion performance by orders-of-magnitude over the past 20 years, with present large machines poised on the edge of achieving energy breakeven. They are supported by a broad base of experimental machines and theory. And there is a large effort to improve these concepts, such as tokamak current-drive, more efficient lasers, and low-activation materials. Reactor studies suggest that these concepts extrapolate to power stations with reasonable energy gain, cost of electricity, and environmental impact. Other approaches to fusion have also been proposed to provide the following: avoid perceived problems with conventional fusion as a practical power source (complexity, size, cost, ability to handle advanced fuels); reduce the cost per experiment (e.g., CIT - 300 M$US, LMF - 1000 M$US, and ITER - 5000 M$US capital cost), which limits the ability of national fusion programs to carry out these critical development steps; and broaden the theory and experimental database to support mainline fusion by exploring alternate conditions of physics and engineering. These alternate approaches have their own technical limits, but as a group suffer relative to tokamaks and lasers from programmatic limits - they have not been funded as long or as well. Therefore, they have a smaller experimental database and need a larger extrapolation to practical fusion. This makes a direct comparison with tokamaks and lasers somewhat subjective. Nonetheless, such judgements are routinely made in program budget decisions. Several reviews have been published which provide a consistent description of the concept status and some degree of comparison [1.1-1.5]. The present review summarizes the status of alternate fusion concepts and their plans for the future. We do not rank the alternate concepts, but rather discuss their status and prospects on a directly comparative framework. The selection of concepts for review itself involves a judgement on feasibility and practicality, but is necessary since so many concepts have been proposed. We adopt the following guidelines: - electromagnetic confinement; - reasonable predictions of net energy gain from pure fusion; - significant recent developments or ongoing international activity. Therefore, we exclude from detailed review: (1) inertial fusion by choice; (2) muon-fusion since useful energy gain appears to require fusion-fission hybrids; (3) 'cold' fusion as 2. predictions of net energy gain are only speculative; and (4) a variety of magnetic fusion concepts that have not shown enough promise to attract reasonable attention and broad international investment. However, for completeness, most of these latter concepts are summarized briefly in Appendices A and B. The concepts that are reviewed here are the following: - advanced tokamaks - stellarators (including heliotrons, heliacs) - spherical tori - reversed-field pinches - field-reversed configurations - spheromaks - dense Z-pinches. Each of these concepts is discussed with respect to the following: basic description of concept, especially novel features relative to tokamak; technical description of their performance, covering all major physics and engineering issues; projections to a reactor; machine parameters as measured and as projected for next-step machines; program pians and needs, especially for tritium use. In the final section, an overall view of the status of each concept with respect to achieving ignition, and with respect to reactor designs is presented. REFERENCES 1.1 F.F. Chen (ed.), 'Alternate Concepts in Controlled Fusion', Electric Power Research Institute, EPRI ER-429-SR (Palo Alto, CAS May 1977). .,2 US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 'STARPOWER, The US and the International Quest for Fusion Energy', OTA-E-338 (Washington DC, October 1987). 1.3 N.A. Krall, 'Alternate Fusion Concepts as Reactors', in 'Unconventional Approaches to Fusion', B. Brunelli and G. Leotta (eds.), Plenum Press (1982) New York. 1.4 V.E. Haloulakos and R.F. Bourke, 'Fusion Propulsion Study', Air Force Space Technology Center, AL-TR-89-005 (Edwards, CA, July 1989). 1.5 R. Krakowski et al, 'Review of Alternative Concepts for Magnetic Fusion', Proc. 4th Mtg on Tech. of Contr. Nucl. Fusion, King of Prussia, PA, 1980 October 14-17, p.797. 3. 2. ADVANCED TOKAMAKS INTRODUCTION The "Tokamak" is a toroidal magnetic confinement concept which uses an externally generated toroidal field and a poloidal field created by an internal induced toroidal plasma current. The resulting helically-twisted magnetic field lines provide good plasma stability and confinement properties. The pitch of the helical magnetic field, often called the "safety factor" and defined as the ratio of number of toroidal turns per poloidal turn, must be greater than unity. The main disadvantages are low 8, pulsed current, and linked magnet coils. The low <3> (< 10%) results from various instabilities and implies a low power density, thereby affecting economics and advanced fuel potential. The plasma current is generally induced by a pulsed ohmic transformer coil, so the machine is pulsed, which leads to engineering fatigue and costs associated with frequent pulse startup and stop. The toroidal, ohmic and poloidal magnet coils are inextricably linked through each other and through the plasma center, which complicates maintenance. However, the advantages are also well-established. Tokamak theory, experimental database and reactor studies are the most advanced. They are the workhorse of the fusion community and offer the ability to explore reactor-relevant plasma behavior and associated technologies that are useful to most magnetic fusion approaches. And tokamaks continue to improve. Therefore, a review of alternate fusion concepts must consider the tokamak and its potential improvements. Table 2-1 summarizes the characteristics of representative existing tokamak experiments, and various proposed machines. Figure 2-1 provides a qualitative comparison of present and proposed tokamaks, including ignition and reactor studies. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION Stabilitv/Beta The tokamak plasma is quite stable, although the limits are constantly being pushed in experiments in order to find better reactor operating conditions. In particular, theoretical and experiment research showed that the usual low 13 limit for tokamaks could be increased. Vertical elongations of up to 2 are commonly used now to improve the beta (e.g., D-lll, JET, CIT, ITER). Early estimates suggested that elongations beyond 2 ("belt pinches") would be even better, but this is not presently considered practical (plasma control becomes difficult [2.11]). Indenting the plasma into a "kidney-bean" shape should also increase the beta limit, as has been shown on PBX. However, this poses considerable engineering difficulties in a reactor. A third approach to higher beta is to use 4. very small aspect ratios (major radius/minor radius, A < 2), the "spherical torus". This case is discussed separately in Section 4. Within the bounds of "conventional tokamaks", the most promising approach to achieving <B> ~ 10% seems to be to access a second stability regime. Specifically, theory suggests that the 13 limit observed in present tokamaks is primarily due to ballooning instabilities and might be suppressed if S could be made large enough. The first problem is that reaching this high 13 regime seems to require crossing a regime of instabilities that would destroy the plasma in times of 10-100 us. In
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