Cost assessment of a generic magnetic fusion reactor

Technical Report · Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 1986

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6086979· OSTI ID:6086979

Sheffield, J.; Dory, R. A.; Cohn, S. M.; Delene, J. G.; Parsly, L. F.; Ashby, D. E.T.F.; Reiersen, W. T.

A generic reactor model is used to examine the economic viability of generating electricity by magnetic fusion. The simple model uses components that are representative of those used in previous reactor studies of deuterium-tritium-burning tokamaks, stellarators, bumpy tori, reversed-field pinches (RFPs), and tandem mirrors. Conservative costing assumptions are made. The generic reactor is not a tokamak; rather, it is intended to emphasize what is common to all magnetic fusion rectors. The reactor uses a superconducting toroidal coil set to produce the dominant magnetic field. To this extent, it is not as good an approximation to systems such as the RFP in which the main field is produced by a plasma current. The main output of the study is the cost of electricity as a function of the weight and size of the fusion core - blanket, shield, structure, and coils. The model shows that a 1200-MW(e) power plant with a fusion core weight of about 10,000 tonnes should be competitive in the future with fission and fossil plants. Studies of the sensitivity of the model to variations in the assumptions show that this result is not sensitively dependent on any given assumption. Of particular importance is the result that a fusion reactor of this scale may be realized with only moderate advances in physics and technology capabilities.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6086979
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-9311; ON: DE86008467
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products. Original copy available until stock is exhausted
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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