The path to fusion power

Abstract

The promise, status and challenges of developing fusion power are outlined. The key physics and engineering principles are described and recent progress quantified. As the successful demonstration of 16 MW of fusion in 1997 in the Joint European Torus showed, fusion works. The central issue is therefore to make it work reliably and economically on the scale of a power station. We argue that to meet this challenge in 30 years we must follow the aggressive programme known as the ‘Fast Track to Fusion’. This programme is described in some detail.

Control-oriented Automatic System for Transport Analysis (ASTRA)-Matlab integration for Tokamaks

“…9(a) and (b)). e ss ¼ lim t/N eðtÞ ¼ lim s/0 sEðsÞ (22) According to the time evolution of the controlled variable (loop voltage) shown in Fig. 9(b), it can be concluded that although the system response is sufficiently fast, the steady-state error as well as the perceived overflow present on it undesirable.…”

“…As it may be observed, the simulated model provides a good performance and a high accuracy, presenting a bounded E norm error with an average value of 0.025. For the case study considered a reference tracking problem has been chosen, so that one of the requirements to be satisfied is to cancel the steady-state error defined by (22) where e(t) is the tracking error and E(s) represents its Laplace transform. Therefore, once the values of the parameters of the controller have been obtained as indicated, the closed-loop response of the system is analyzed (see Fig.…”

“…Smith [22], that presents the state of the art of nuclear fusion technology, revisiting its challenges and possible solutions.…”

Food contamination after the Chernobyl accident: dose assessments and health effects

“…Natural sources of power generation like wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric power and electricity from combustible renewables and waste will make a contribution, but their share in the global energy balance is too small (IEA, 2008) to substitute for nuclear power. In future, nuclear fission will be probably replaced by fusion, which is intrinsically safer (Llewellyn Smith and Ward, 2007). However, the worldwide introduction of nuclear energy should be managed and supervised by a powerful international executive.…”

Performance of structural materials for the DEMO divertor

“…However, research is concentrated on two types of machines, the tokamak, and the stellarator. The tokamak is the only device that has produced significant fusion, on JET and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in the US (Smith & Cowley 2010).…”