The Future Of Fusion Energy

by Jason Parisi, Justin Ball

Overview

'The text provides an interesting history of previous and anticipated accomplishments, ending with a chapter on the relationship of fusion power to nuclear weaponry. They conclude on an optimistic note, well worth being understood by the general public.'
CHOICEThe gap between the state of fusion energy research and public understanding is vast. In an entertaining and engaging narrative, this popular science book gives readers the basic tools to understand how fusion works, its potential, and contemporary research problems.Written by two young researchers in the field, The Future of Fusion Energy explains how physical laws and the Earth's energy resources motivate the current fusion program — a program that is approaching a critical point. The world's largest science project and biggest ever fusion reactor, ITER, is nearing completion. Its success could trigger a worldwide race to build a power plant, but failure could delay fusion by decades. To these ends, this book details how ITER's results could be used to design an economically competitive power plant as well as some of the many alternative fusion concepts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786347497
Publisher:	World Scientific Publishing Europe Ltd
Publication date:	01/14/2019
Pages:	404
Sales rank:	735,295
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.83(d)

Table of Contents

Preface xi

About the Authors xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: The Case for Fusion xxiii

Part 1 Motivation 1

1 The Hydrogen-Powered Civilization 3

1.1 Revolutions in Energy Use 3

1.2 Comparing Options 7

2 Energy in Numbers and Graphs 11

2.1 Can We Even Consume Energy? 11

2.2 A Brief History of Energy 12

2.3 Our Energy Resources 17

2.3.1 Fusion 19

2.3.2 Nuclear fission 23

2.3.3 Geothermal 27

2.3.4 Solar 28

2.3.5 Wind 30

2.3.6 Biomass 35

2.3.7 Fossil fuels 37

2.3.8 Hydroelectric 39

2.3.9 Tidal 41

2.3.10 Wave 44

2.4 Tackling Intermittency 46

2.4.1 Energy storage 50

2.4.2 Demand management 54

2.4.3 Expanding electrical grids 54

2.4.4 Extra generating capacity 56

2.5 What is "Renewable"? 57

2.6 Outlook 58

Part 2 The Basics 63

3 Fundamentals of Fusion Energy 65

3.1 The Nuclear Potential 65

3.2 Binding Energy 70

3.3 Fusion Cross-Section 77

3.4 Fusion Fuels 83

3.5 Plasma 86

4 Plasma Confinement 89

4.1 Quantifying Confinement 90

4.2 Magnetic Fields 91

4.3 Electric Fields 94

4.4 Electrostatic Confinement 96

4.5 Linear Magnetic Confinement 100

4.6 Combing a Hairy Ball 103

4.7 Particle Drifts 104

4.8 Toroidal Magnetic Confinement 109

4.9 Magnetic Surfaces 114

4.10 Bananas and Super-Bananas 118

4.11 MIID Stability 120

4.12 Classical and Neoclassical Transport 123

4.13 Turbulent Transport 126

4.14 The Lawson Criterion and the Triple Product 131

4.15 Where is Magnetic Fusion Now? 136

5 Fusion Technology 139

5.1 Magnets 139

5.2 Plasma Heating and Current Drive 144

5.2.1 Inductive 145

5.2.2 Neutral beam 148

5.2.3 Electromagnetic wave 150

5.3 First Wall 153

5.4 Divertors 157

5.5 Tritium Breeding Blanket 160

5.6 Vacuum Vessel 164

5.7 Diagnostics 164

5.8 Radioactive Waste and Remote Maintenance 167

5.9 Generating Net Electricity 169

Part 3 The State Of The Art 173

6 The Past: Fusion Breakthroughs 175

6.1 1920s: Understanding Stars 175

6.2 1950s: A Kick-Start for Fusion 179

6.3 1960s: Superconducting Magnets 181

6.4 1960s: The Tokamak 186

6.5 1970s: Bootstrap Current 189

6.6 1980s: H-Mode 193

6.7 1980s: Plasma Shaping 198

6.8 1990s: Deuterium-Tritium Fuel 202

6.9 2000s: Supercomputers 204

7 The Present: ITER 211

7.1 ITER's Goals 212

7.2 ITER's Strategy 216

7.2.1 Heating systems 218

7.2.2 Divertor 220

7.2.3 First wall 222

7.3 ITER's Schedule and Cost 224

7.4 Transition to DEMO 232

7.5 Other Things to be Excited for 234

8 The Future: Designing a Tokamak Power Plant 237

8.1 Power Plant Design from First Principles 238

8.2 Maximizing Net Electric Power 241

8.3 Maximizing Plasma Pressure 243

8.4 Maximizing Plasma Current 246

8.5 Maximizing Magnetic Field Strength 247

8.6 Minimizing External Power 249

8.7 Minimizing Heating Power 249

8.8 Maximizing Plasma Density 253

8.9 Minimizing Current Drive Power 253

8.10 Maximizing Material Survivability 255

8.11 Striking the Right Balance 257

Part 4 Special Topics 261

9 Alternative Approaches to Fusion Energy 263

9.1 Stellarators 263

9.2 Inertial Confinement Fusion 269

9.3 Private Fusion Startups 277

9.3.1 Tokamak Energy Ltd 281

9.3.2 General Fusion 284

9.3.3 Lockheed Martin 287

9.3.4 TAE Technologies 290

9.3.5 Lawrenceville Plasma Physics 296

9.3.6 Helion Energy 300

9.3.7 Commonwealth Fusion Systems 301

10 Fusion and Nuclear Proliferation 303

10.1 Nuclear Physics: A Double-edged Sword 310

10.2 Building Nukes 312

10.2.1 Uranium enrichment 317

10.2.2 Plutonium production 320

10.2.3 Weapon designs 321

10.3 Conventional Fission Reactors 325

10.4 Breeder Reactors 330

10.5 Fission Proliferation Risks 333

10.6 Fusion Proliferation Risks 336

10.7 The Nuclear Energy Transition 341

10.8 Reshaping Geopolitics 343

10.9 Being a Role Model 344

11 Fusion and Space Exploration 347

11.1 Basics of Spaceflight 349

11.2 Fusion Thruster 354

Part 5 Conclusions 357

12 When Will We Have Fusion? 359

Bibliography 367

Index 371