[Table of Contents]

Plasma and Fusion Research

Volume 7, 2405035 (2012)

Regular Articles

A Pilot Plant as the Next Step toward an MFE Demo
George H. NEILSON, David A. GATES, Charles E. KESSEL, Jonathan E. MENARD, Stewart C. PRAGER, Steven D. SCOTT, James R. WILSON and Michael C. ZARNSTORFF
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, PO Box 451, MS-38, Princeton, NJ 08543, U.S.A.
(Received 2 December 2011 / Accepted 5 March 2012 / Published 10 May 2012)

Abstract

An assessment of Demo goals and of prerequisites for Demo readiness motivate an examination of a pilot plant: an intermediate facility designed to substantially narrow the technical gap to Demo in a next step. A pilot plant would: 1) test internal components and tritium breeding in a steady-state fusion environment, 2) prototype a maintainable design and maintenance scheme for a power plant, and 3) generate net electricity. Preconceptual designs based on the advanced tokamak (AT), spherical tokamak (ST), and compact stellarator (CS) have been developed in order to compare their relative merits as fusion systems. Any of them would take a large step toward Demo in key performance metrics, e.g. engineering gain QENG (≥1), neutron wall load (> 1 MW/m2 ), tritium breeding ratio (> 1), pulse length (106 -107 s), blanket lifetime fluence (≥ 3 MW-yr/m2 ), plant lifetime (6-20 MW-yr/m2 ), and availability (10-30%), but they differ in their associated risks.

Keywords

pilot plant, Demo, technology, roadmap, tokamak, spherical tokamak, stellarator

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.7.2405035

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References

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This paper may be cited as follows:

George H. NEILSON, David A. GATES, Charles E. KESSEL, Jonathan E. MENARD, Stewart C. PRAGER, Steven D. SCOTT, James R. WILSON and Michael C. ZARNSTORFF, Plasma Fusion Res. 7, 2405035 (2012).