Meeting Summary

Objectives

The propose of the meeting was to look in an integrated way at all the aspects that are anticipated to become relevant within the next two generations, when a first Fusion power plant prototype is expected to be in operation leading to the first generation of commercial power plants with attractive safety and environmental features and viable economics. In addition to electricity generation, the generation of mobile power (e.g. hydrogen) was considered. The requirements arising for fusion development (including plasma physics, materials and human resources) were addressed from the perspective of using fusion for electricity and hydrogen production.  

Relevance for the IAEA activities

The relevance of this meeting for the IAEA activities is directly linked with the objectives stated in the IAEA Subprogramme D.4. – Nuclear Fusion Research: to strengthen cooperation amongst major institutions and world wide commitment for plasma physics and nuclear fusion in order to create a viable source of nuclear energy through support to new and alternative fusion confinement concepts.

Short Summary

Several studies looking at reactor performance and final cost of electricity (CoE) were presented. CoE can range from 6-9 cents given the present uncertainties. The nuclear safety and non-emission of green house gases (GHG) are inherent advantages of fusion. Radioactive waste can be handled after 100-200 years, a much shorter period when compared with the 11,000 years half-life of long living products of fission.

ITER is the important step forward to the first generation fusion power plant. Several fusion power plant conceptual designs and system analysis have been done and show the first commercial fusion power plant will be economically acceptable, with major safety and environmental advantages. But there are still some key physics basis, important R&D on Tritium handling, materials for divertor, blanket and structure and cooling system that should be further developed. Presented power plant models show advantages/balance in several items: blanket, materials, plasma performance, etc. Super conductors need to address several issues for reactor power plant. Blanket replacement studies for power plant reactor have been presented and seemed feasible. Regarding the issue of hydrogen production from a fusion power plant, it must be included in the reactor design requirements to be possible to realize given the higher operating blanket temperatures.

Development of fusion reactor activities in developing countries such as China and Korea were presented along with the national programme that enable each of them to engage in the construction of superconducting major devices: EAST in China and KSTAR in Korea .

In a more technical note, the topic of materials for a fusion power plant was presented. Structural material for DEMO is well defined. EUROFER (or similar) promises an acceptable performance up to 75-150 dpa. It has a limited strength at high temperature (operational window is limited ~ 500C). A better material with higher operational temperature window (up to 700C) is under development. A DEMO design must be able to test this advanced material.

The results of neutron transport and activation analysis that were reported for the EU DEMO designs supported the conclusions that a) no waste demanding permanent disposal will be generated and b) some materials necessary for tritium breading (LiPb) may be reused.

The ITER licensing procedure used in France and the roadmap were presented following the recommendations on the Dossier D’Options de Sûreté (DOS) and of the Autorité de Sûreté Nucleaire (ASN). It has been pointed out that some R&D should be carried out to justify the estimated values and their uncertainties, to demonstrate that the foreseen technical solutions are feasible or available and to validate the safety calculation codes.

A fast track approach was addressed looking to speed up the path to an operational fusion power plant. The fast track approach is strongly justified for EU since it depends on 80% of imported fossil fuel. A fast track approach shall be implemented upon 3 major pillars: i) ITER on time and achieving the aims ii) The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) shall be developed in parallel and iii) joint exploitation of existing and forthcoming research facilities, more coordinated approaches (such as the International Tokamak Physics Activities - ITPA) are recommended to be strengthened.

At the evening session, an overview was given on the two types of plasma scenarios which could generally extrapolate to a reactor: one steady state (RS), and one pulsed or steady state with significantly higher current drive capability (hybrid). It was concluded that more work is needed to give an educated answer to the question on the power needed for restart in a pulsed machine and its impact on the grid. It was suggested to study if Hybrid regimes can be made steady state although this has an increased current drive cost. Physics considerations, engineering and socio economics integration have not yet been done for hybrid regime to better support the choice - pulsed or steady state. It was common feeling that Steady-state should be considered as the preferred regime and Hybrid regimes as a back-up that should be developed as a benchmark for Steady-state regimes

The International Advisory Committee expressed the support to the continuation of this meeting in a one or two years basis.

It was suggested by the Chair of the IAC that within the ITER parties to look at the possibility to propose to the IAEA to use an existing engineering centre to support the work of a DEMO working group under the auspices of IAEA.