This book can be ordered from Amazon.com for between $36 and $50 (price varies).. A digital version can be seen on Springer.com (search "Indispensable") A Kindle edition is available for $39.46 at Amazon.com AN INDISPENSABLE TRUTH How fusion power can save the planet Francis F. Chen TABLE OF CONTENTS* Preface i Prologue. Toward a sustainable world ii PART I WHY FUSION IS INDISPENSABLE Chap. 1. The evidence for climate change 1-1 Is global warming real? 1-1 Physics of temperature change 1-4 Quantifying global warming 1-5 Evidence for climate change 1-6 Paleoclimate 1-6 Computer modeling 1-8 Modern data 1-9 Global temperature rise 1-10 Disasters and catastrophes 1-13 Sea level rise 1-13 The Gulf Stream 1-15 The One Degree effect 1-15 Floods and droughts 1-17 Effect on oceans 1-19 Weather extremes 1-20 Hurricanes and typhoons 1-22 Slowing the inevitable 1-23 Notes, Chap. 1 1-33 Chap. 2. The future of energy I: Fossil fuels 2-1 Backbone power 2-1 The energy deficit 2-2 Energy units 2-2 Energy consumption 2-2 Energy forecasts 2-5 What drives the increasing demand? 2-5 Where does the energy go? 2-7 Energy reserves 2-9 Coal and carbon management 2-13 Cap and trade 2-14 Carbon sequestration 2-15 Oil and gas pipedreams 2-18 Deep drilling 2-19 Arctic drilling 2-20 * These page numbers are only approximate because of last minute changes and automatic repagination by MS Word and Adobe Acrobat. v Shale oil 2-20 Tar sands 2-21 Oil from algae 2-23 Gas hydrates 2-23 Notes, Chap. 2 2-25 Chap. 3. The future of energy II: Renewable energy 3-1 Introduction 3-1 Wind energy 3-1 The birds and the bats 3-2 The growth of wind 3-3 When is a megawatt not a megawatt? 3-5 Size matters 3-7 Offshore wind farms 3-9 Blade design 3-10 How turbines work 3-11 The fossil footprint 3-12 Energy storage 3-13 Meshing with the grid 3-14 The bottom line on wind 3-15 Solar energy 3-15 The nature of sunlight 3-15 Ways to use solar power 3-16 Panels on every rooftop 3-18 Photovoltaic panels 3-19 Dangers 3-20 Central station solar power 3-20 Solar thermal plants 3-20 Fossil footprint 3-22 Solar photovoltaic plants 3-23 Storage and transmission 3-24 Is large-scale solar power really feasible? 3-25 How photovoltaics work 3-26 Silicon solar cells 3-29 Thin-film solar cells 3-34 Fossil footprint and environmental issues 3-36 Ideas on the horizon 3-39 Organic solar cells 3-40 Dye-sensitized solar cells 3-41 Quantum-dot solar cells 3-41 Thermoelectric solar energy 3-42 Geo-engineering 3-43 The bottom line on solar 3-44 Energy for transportation 3-49 Hydrogen cars 3-49 A hydrogen economy? 3-49 How to carry hydrogen 3-49 Anatomy of a fuel cell 3-50 vi Sources of hydrogen 3-52 Bottom line on hydrogen cars 3-53 Electric cars and hybrids 3-54 Efficiencies of gas and electric cars 3-54 Gas-electric hybrids 3-55 Plug-in hybrids 3-56 Batteries 3-58 How batteries work 3-59 Supercapacitors and Pseudocapacitors 3-61 Summary of electric cars 3-63 Biofuels 3-63 Nuclear power 3-66 Importance of nuclear power 3-66 How nuclear reactors work 3-66 The cast of characters 3-67 The chain reaction 3-67 Moderation is the key 3-68 Isotope separation 3-68 Inside a nuclear reactor 3-68 Types of reactors 3-69 Liquid-metal fast breeder (LMFBR) 3-69 Reactor control 3-70 Fuel reprocessing 3-70 Radioactive waste storage 3-70 Nuclear proliferation 3-71 Nuclear accidents 3-72 Future reactors 3-72 Fission-fusion hybrids 3-74 Other renewables 3-76 Hydroelectricity 3-76 Geothermal 3-76 Wave and tide energy 3-77 Biomass 3-77 Wild schemes 3-78 Notes on Chap. 3 3-79 vii PART II HOW FUSION WORKS AND WHAT IT CAN DO Chap. 4. Fusion: energy from seawater 4-1 Fission and fusion: vive la difference! 4-1 Binding energy 4-1 Fission and fusion reactions 4-2 How fusion differs from fission 4-4 The size of energy 4-4 How fusion works 4-5 Plasma: the shining gas 4-6 Designing a magnetic bottle 4-9 What is a magnetic field? 4-9 How can a magnetic field hold a plasma? 4-11 The hole in the doughnut 4-13 Why the field lines have to be twisted 4-14 Mappings, chaos, and magnetic surfaces 4-17 Notes on Chap. 4 4-21 Chap. 5. Perfecting the magnetic bottle 5-1 Some very large numbers 5-1 Instabilities: the fly in the ointment 5-4 Hot plasma as a superconductor 5-4 How plasma moves in electric fields 5-5 The Rayleigh-Taylor instability 5-6 Stabilization by sheared fields 5-8 Plasma heating and “classical” leak rates 5-10 Notes on Chap. 5 5-12 Chap. 6. The remarkable tokamak 6-1 A special kind of torus 6-1 Kink instability and the Kruskal limit 6-2 Mirrors, bananas, and neoclassicism 6-4 Turbulence and Bohm diffusion 6-7 The culprit: microinstabilities 6-10 The drift instability mechanism 6-12 Vertical fields 6-16 Notes on Chap. 6 6-18 Chap. 7. Evolution and physics of the tokamak 7-1 Magnetic islands 7-1 Sawtooth oscillations 7-4 Diagnostics 7-5 Self-organization 7-6 Magnetic wells and shapely curves 7-6 Evolution of the D-shape 7-8 viii How to heat a plasma to unearthly temperatures 7-10 Mother Nature lends a hand 7-14 Bootstrap current 7-14 The isotope effect 7-16 The Ware pinch 7-16 Zonal flows 7-17 Time scales 7-19 High confinement modes 7-20 The H-mode 7-20 Reverse shear 7-22 Internal transport barriers 7-23 Notes on Chap. 7 7-27 Chap. 8. A half-century of progress 8-1 What have we accomplished? 8-1 Fits, spurts, and milestones 8-3 Computer simulation 8-8 Unfinished physics 8-11 ELMs 8-11 Fishbones 8-12 Disruptions 8-13 The tokamak’s limits 8-17 The Greenwald limit 8-17 Beta and the Troyon limit 8-17 Big Q and little q 8-18 The confinement scaling law 8-19 ITER: Seven nations forge ahead 8-20 Notes on Chap. 8 8-28 Chap. 9. Engineering: the big challenge 9-1 Introduction 9-1 The first wall and other materials 9-2 The first wall 9-2 The divertor 9-5 Structural materials 9-7 Blankets and tritium breeding 9-8 What is a blanket? 9-8 The role of lithium 9-9 Blanket designs 9-10 Helium Cooled Ceramic Breeder 9-11 Helium-Cooled Lithium-Lead 9-12 Dual-Cooled Lithium Lead 9-13 Maintenance and operation 9-15 Tritium management 9-15 Tritium self-sufficiency 9-15 Tritium basics 9-16 The tritium fuel cycle 9-17 Superconducting magnets 9-18 ix Introduction 9-18 ITER’s magnet coils 9-18 The supply of helium 9-20 High-temperature superconductors 9-21 Plasma heating and current drive 9-21 Introduction 9-21 Neutral beam injection 9-21 Ion cyclotron heating 9-21 Electron cyclotron heating 9-22 Lower hybrid heaing 9-23 Remaining physics problems 9-24 Edge Localized Modes 9-24 Disruptions 9-25 Alfvén wave instabilities 9-26 Operating a fusion reactor 9-26 Startup, ramp-down, and steady-state operation 9-26 Maintaining the current profile 9-27 Remote handling 9-27 Fusion development facilities 9-28 IFMIF: International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility 9-28 Fusion ignition tokamaks 9-29 High Volume Neutron Source 9-29 Fusion Development Facility (FDF) 9-30 A spherical tokamak FDF Fusion power plants 9-31 Commercial feasibility 9-31 Power plant designs 9-32 The cost of electricity 9-36 Methodology 9-36 Important dependences 9-37 Cost levelization / discounting 9-38 The cost of fusion energy Notes on Chap. 9 9-42 Chap. 10. Fusion concepts for the future 10-1 Advanced fuel cycles 10-1 Stellarators 10-3 Wendelstein 10-4 Large Helical Device 10-5 Benefits of non-axisymmetry 10-6 Compact stellarators 10-7 Spherical toruses 10-8 Spherical tokamaks 10-8 Spheromaks 10-11 Magnetic mirrors 10-12 How mirrors work 10-13 Ioffe bars and baseball coils 10-13 Mirror machines 10-15 Axisymmetric mirrors 10-16 x Direct conversion 10-17 Magnetic pinches 10-17 Reversed-field pinch 10-17 Field-reversed configuration 10-19 Z-pinches 10-22 Plasma focus 10-23 Inertial confinement fusion 10-24 Introduction 10-24 General principles 10-25 Instabilities 10-25 Glass lasers 10-26 Other lasers 10-28 Target designs 10-28 Direct and indirect drive 10-29 Reactor technology 10-31 Pulsed power 10-32 Hoaxes and dead ends 10-34 Cold fusion 10-34 Bubble fusion 10-34 Muon fusion 10-34 Astron 10-35 Electrostatic confinement 10-36 Migma 10-36 Ultimate fusion 10-36 Notes on Chap. 10 10-38 Chap. 11. Conclusions 11-1 Scientific summary 11-1 Cost of developing fusion 11-1 Conclusion 11-4 Epilogue 11-4 Notes on Chap. 11 11-5 xi.