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Developing a commercial production process for 500 000 targets per day: A key challenge for inertial fusion energy

Authors :
J.E. Streit
B. W. McQuillan
Diana Grace Schroen
Neil Alexander
W. Maksaereekul
D.T. Goodin
P. Goodman
B. A. Vermillion
G.W. Flint
R. Raffray
L.C. Brown
G. E. Besenbruch
A. S. Bozek
Mark S. Tillack
R. R. Paguio
John D. Sheliak
R.W. Petzoldt
J. D. Kilkenny
Jon Spalding
Lane Carlson
A. Nikroo
Source :
Physics of Plasmas. 13:056305
Publication Year :
2006
Publisher :
AIP Publishing, 2006.

Abstract

As is true for current-day commercial power plants, a reliable and economic fuel supply is essential for the viability of future Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) [Energy From Inertial Fusion, edited by W. J. Hogan (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1995)] power plants. While IFE power plants will utilize deuterium-tritium (DT) bred in-house as the fusion fuel, the “target” is the vehicle by which the fuel is delivered to the reaction chamber. Thus the cost of the target becomes a critical issue in regard to fuel cost. Typically six targets per second, or about 500 000∕day are required for a nominal 1000MW(e) power plant. The electricity value within a typical target is about $3, allocating 10% for fuel cost gives only 30 cents per target as-delivered to the chamber center. Complicating this economic goal, the target supply has many significant technical challenges—fabricating the precision fuel-containing capsule, filling it with DT, cooling it to cryogenic temperatures, layering the DT into a uniform layer, characterizing the finished product, accelerating it to high velocity for injection into the chamber, and tracking the target to steer the driver beams to meet it with micron-precision at the chamber center.

Details

ISSN :
10897674 and 1070664X
Volume :
13
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Physics of Plasmas
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........b5343833d57b25f727b3f40bb49a1716
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2177129