Plasma and Fusion Research

Volume 6, 2405126 (2011)

Regular Articles


Research on Economics and CO2 Emission of Magnetic and Inertial Fusion Reactors
Kenjiro MORI, Kozo YAMAZAKI, Tetsutarou OISHI, Hideki ARIMOTO and Tatsuo SHOJI
Department of Energy Engineering and Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 466-8603, Japan
(Received 7 December 2010 / Accepted 6 May 2011 / Published 16 September 2011)

Abstract

An economical and environment-friendly fusion reactor system is needed for the realization of attractive power plants. Comparative system studies have been done for magnetic fusion energy (MFE) reactors, and been extended to include inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactors by Physics Engineering Cost (PEC) system code. In this study, we have evaluated both tokamak reactor (TR) and IFE reactor (IR). We clarify new scaling formulas for cost of electricity (COE) and CO2 emission rate with respect to key design parameters. By the scaling formulas, it is clarified that the plant availability and operation year dependences are especially dominant for COE. On the other hand, the parameter dependences of CO2 emission rate is rather weak than that of COE. This is because CO2 emission percentage from manufacturing the fusion island is lower than COE percentage from that. Furthermore, the parameters dependences for IR are rather weak than those for TR. Because the CO2 emission rate from manufacturing the laser system to be exchanged is very large in comparison with CO2 emission rate from TR blanket exchanges.


Keywords

tokamak reactor, inertial fusion reactor, COE, CO2 emission amount rate, scaling formula

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.6.2405126


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This paper may be cited as follows:

Kenjiro MORI, Kozo YAMAZAKI, Tetsutarou OISHI, Hideki ARIMOTO and Tatsuo SHOJI, Plasma Fusion Res. 6, 2405126 (2011).