Internal view of the JET tokamak superimposed with an image of a plasma taken with a visible spectrum video camera. © EFDA-JET

Fusion power refers to power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so, release energy. In a more general sense, the term can also refer to the production of net usable power from a fusion source, similar to the usage of the term "steam power." Most design studies for fusion power plants involve using the fusion reactions to create heat, which is then used to operate a steam turbine, similar to most coal-fired power stations as well as fission-driven nuclear power stations. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 470 pixel Image in higher resolution (2500 × 1469 pixel, file size: 945 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) This is a copyrighted image that has been released by a company or organization to promote their work or product in the media... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 470 pixel Image in higher resolution (2500 × 1469 pixel, file size: 945 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) This is a copyrighted image that has been released by a company or organization to promote their work or product in the media... This article is about the fusion reactor device. ... Visible light redirects here. ... The deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reaction is considered the most promising for producing fusion power. ... The nucleus of an atom is the very small dense region, of positive charge, in its centre consisting of nucleons (protons and neutrons). ... A rotor of a modern steam turbine, used in a power plant A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into useful mechanical work. ... This article is about applications of nuclear fission reactors as power sources. ...

The largest current experiment, JET, has resulted in fusion power production slightly less than the power put into the plasma, maintaining an output of 16 MW for a few seconds. In June 2005, the construction of the experimental reactor ITER, designed to produce several times more fusion power than the power put into the plasma over many minutes, was announced. The production of net electrical power from fusion is planned for DEMO, the next generation experiment after ITER. Split image of JET with right side showing hot plasma during a shot. ... For other uses, see Watt (disambiguation). ... ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering project designed to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. ... This article or section contains speculation and may try to argue its points. ...

Fuel cycle

The Sun is a natural fusion reactor.

The basic concept behind any fusion reaction is to bring two or more atoms very close together, close enough that the strong nuclear force in their nuclei will pull them together into one larger atom. If two light nuclei fuse, they will generally form a single nucleus with a slightly smaller mass than the sum of their original masses. The difference in mass is released as energy according to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc². If the input atoms are sufficiently massive, the resulting fusion product will be heavier than the reactants, in which case the reaction requires an external source of energy. The dividing line between "light" and "heavy" is iron. Above this atomic mass, energy will generally be released in nuclear fission reactions, below it, in fusion. Image File history File links Sun_in_X-Ray. ... Image File history File links Sun_in_X-Ray. ... Sol redirects here. ... The strong nuclear force or strong interaction (also called color force or colour force) is a fundamental force of nature which affects only quarks and antiquarks, and is mediated by gluons in a similar fashion to how the electromagnetic force is mediated by photons. ... 15ft sculpture of Einsteins 1905 E = mc² formula at the 2006 Walk of Ideas, Germany In physics, mass-energy equivalence is the concept that all mass has an energy equivalence, and all energy has a mass equivalence. ... For other uses, see Iron (disambiguation). ... For the generation of electrical power by fission, see Nuclear power plant. ...

Fusion between the atoms is opposed by their shared electrical charge, specifically the net positive charge of the nuclei. In order to overcome this electrostatic force, or "Coulomb barrier", some external source of energy must be supplied. The easiest way to do this is to heat the atoms, which has the side effect of stripping the electrons from the atoms and leaving them as bare nuclei. In most experiments the nuclei and electrons are left in a fluid known as a plasma. The temperatures required to provide the nuclei with enough energy to overcome their repulsion is a function of the total charge, so hydrogen, which has the smallest nuclear charge therefore reacts at the lowest temperature. Helium has an extremely low mass per nucleon and therefore is energetically favoured as a fusion product. As a consequence, most fusion reactions combine isotopes of hydrogen ("protium", deuterium, or tritium) to form isotopes of helium (³He or ⁴He). In physics, the electrostatic force is the force arising between static (that is, non-moving) electric charges. ... The Coulomb barrier, named after physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736—1806), is the energy barrier due to electrostatic interaction that two nuclei need to overcome so they can get close enough to undergo nuclear fusion. ... For other uses, see Electron (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Plasma. ... This article is about the chemistry of hydrogen. ... General Name, symbol, number helium, He, 2 Chemical series noble gases Group, period, block 18, 1, s Appearance colorless Standard atomic weight 4. ... The deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reaction is considered the most promising for producing fusion power. ... Depiction of a hydrogen atom showing the diameter as about twice the Bohr model radius. ... Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6500 of hydrogen (~154 PPM). ... Tritium (symbol T or ³H) is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. ...

Perhaps the three most widely considered fuel cycles are based on the D-T, D-D, and p-¹¹B reactions. Other fuel cycles (D-³He and ³He-³He) would require a supply of ³He, either from other nuclear reactions or from extra-terrestrial sources, such as the surface of the moon or the atmospheres of the gas giant planets. The details of the calculations comparing these reactions can be found here. The deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reaction is considered the most promising for producing fusion power. ...

The D-T fuel cycle

Diagram of the D-T reaction

The easiest (according to the Lawson criterion) and most immediately promising nuclear reaction to be used for fusion power is: Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

D + T → ⁴He + n

Deuterium is a naturally occurring isotope of hydrogen and as such is universally available. The large mass ratio of the hydrogen isotopes makes the separation rather easy compared to the difficult uranium enrichment process. Tritium is also an isotope of hydrogen, but it occurs naturally in only negligible amounts due to its radioactive half-life of 12.34 years. Consequently, the deuterium-tritium fuel cycle requires the breeding of tritium from lithium using one of the following reactions: Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6500 of hydrogen (~154 PPM). ... Tritium (symbol T or ³H) is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. ... Helium-4 is a non-radioactive and light isotope of helium. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Isotope (disambiguation). ... Enriched uranium is uranium whose uranium-235 content has been increased through the process of isotope separation. ... In nuclear physics, beta decay (sometimes called neutron decay) is a type of radioactive decay in which a beta particle (an electron or a positron) is emitted. ... Half-Life For a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. ... A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that breeds fuel. ... This article is about the chemical element named Lithium. ...

n + ⁶Li → T + ⁴He

n + ⁷Li → T + ⁴He + n

The reactant neutron is supplied by the D-T fusion reaction shown above, the one which also produces the useful energy. The reaction with ⁶Li is exothermic, providing a small energy gain for the reactor. The reaction with ⁷Li is endothermic but does not consume the neutron. At least some ⁷Li reactions are required to replace the neutrons lost by reactions with other elements. Most reactor designs use the naturally occurring mix of lithium isotopes. The supply of lithium is more limited than that of deuterium, but still large enough to supply the world's energy demand for hundreds of years. In chemistry, an exothermic reaction is one that releases heat . ... In Chemistry an endothermic reaction is one in which the reactants have less energy than the products, and thus a net input of energy, usually in the form of heat, is required. ...

Several drawbacks are commonly attributed to D-T fusion power:

1. It produces substantial amounts of neutrons that result in induced radioactivity within the reactor structure.
2. Only about 20% of the fusion energy yield appears in the form of charged particles (the rest neutrons), which limits the extent to which direct energy conversion techniques might be applied.
3. The use of D-T fusion power depends on lithium resources, which are less abundant than deuterium resources.
4. It requires the handling of the radioisotope tritium. Similar to hydrogen, tritium is extremely difficult to contain and is expected to leak from reactors in some quantity. Estimates suggest that this would represent a fairly large environmental release of radioactivity.^[1]

The neutron flux expected in a commercial D-T fusion reactor is about 100 times that of current fission power reactors, posing problems for material design. Design of suitable materials is underway but their actual use in a reactor is not proposed until the generation after ITER. After a single series of D-T tests at JET, the largest fusion reactor yet to use this fuel, the vacuum vessel was sufficiently radioactive that remote handling needed to be used for the year following the tests. Induced radioactivity is when a previously stable material has been made radioactive by exposure to specific radiation. ... neutron flux n : the rate of flow of neutrons; the number of neutrons passing through a unit area in unit time via dictionary. ... ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering project designed to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. ... Split image of JET with right side showing hot plasma during a shot. ...

On the other hand, the volumetric deposition of neutron power can also be seen as an advantage. If all the power of a fusion reactor had to be transported by conduction through the surface enclosing the plasma, it would be very difficult to find materials and a construction that would survive, and it would probably entail a relatively poor efficiency.

The D-D fuel cycle

Though more difficult to facilitate than the deuterium-tritium reaction, fusion can also be achieved through the reaction of deuterium with itself. This reaction has two branches that occur with nearly equal probability:

D + D	→ T	+ p
	→ ³He	+ n

The optimum temperature for this reaction is 15 keV, only slightly higher than the optimum for the D-T reaction. The first branch does not produce neutrons, but it does produce tritium, so that a D-D reactor will not be completely tritium-free, even though it does not require an input of tritium or lithium. Most of the tritium produced will be burned before leaving the reactor, which reduces the tritium handling required, but also means that more neutrons are produced and that some of these are very energetic. The neutron from the second branch has an energy of only 2.45 MeV, whereas the neutron from the D-T reaction has an energy of 14.1 MeV, resulting in a wider range of isotope production and material damage. Assuming complete tritium burn-up, the reduction in the fraction of fusion energy carried by neutrons is only about 18%, so that the primary advantage of the D-D fuel cycle is that tritium breeding is not required. Other advantages are independence from limitations of lithium resources and a somewhat softer neutron spectrum. The price to pay compared to D-T is that the energy confinement (at a given pressure) must be 30 times better and the power produced (at a given pressure and volume) is 68 times less.

The p-¹¹B fuel cycle

If aneutronic fusion is the goal, then the most promising candidate may be the proton-boron reaction: Aneutronic fusion is any form of fusion power where no more than 1% of the total energy released is carried by neutrons. ...

p + ¹¹B → 3 ⁴He

Under reasonable assumptions, side reactions will result in about 0.1% of the fusion power being carried by neutrons. At 123 keV, the optimum temperature for this reaction is nearly ten times higher than that for the pure hydrogen reactions, the energy confinement must be 500 times better than that required for the D-T reaction, and the power density will be 2500 times lower than for D-T. Since the confinement properties of conventional approaches to fusion such as the tokamak and laser pellet fusion are marginal, most proposals for aneutronic fusion are based on radically different confinement concepts. In engineering, specific power (sometimes also power per unit mass or power density) refers to the amount of power delivered by an energy source, divided by some measure of the sources size or mass. ...

History of fusion energy research

The idea of using human-initiated fusion reactions was first made practical for military purposes, in nuclear weapons. In a hydrogen bomb, the energy released by a fission weapon is used to compress and heat fusion fuel, beginning a fusion reaction which can release a very large amount of energy. The first fusion-based weapons released some 500 times more energy than early fission weapons. The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 kilometers (11 mi) above the hypocenter A nuclear weapon derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of fusion or fission. ...

Civilian applications, in which explosive energy production must be replaced by a controlled production, are still being developed. Although it took less than ten years to go from military applications to civilian fission energy production,^[2] it was very different in the fusion energy field, more than fifty years having already passed^[3] without any energy production plant being started up.

Magnetic approach

Registration of the first patent related to a fusion reactor^[4] by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, the inventors being Sir George Paget Thomson and Moses Blackman, dates back to 1946. Some basic principles used in the ITER experiment are described in this patent: toroidal vacuum chamber, magnetic confinement, and radio frequency plasma heating. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was established in 1954 as a statutory corporation to oversee and pioneer the development of nuclear energy within the United Kingdom. ... Joe has no friends what-so-ever Sir George Paget Thomson FRS (May 3, 1892 – September 10, 1975) was a Nobel-Prize-winning, English physicist who discovered the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction. ... Moses Blackman (December 6, 1908 - June 3, 1983), was a fellow of the Royal Society. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Radio waves. ...

The U.S. fusion program began in 1951 when Lyman Spitzer began work on a stellarator under the code name Project Matterhorn. His work led to the creation of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where magnetically confined plasmas are still studied. The stellarator concept fell out of favor for several decades afterwards, plagued by poor confinement issues, but recent advances in computer technology have led to a significant resurgence in interest in these devices. A wide variety of other magnetic geometries were also experimented with, notably with the magnetic mirror. These systems also suffered from similar problems when higher performance versions were constructed. Lyman Spitzer Lyman Spitzer, Jr. ... Stellarator magnetic field and magnets A stellarator is a device used to confine a hot plasma with magnetic fields in order to sustain a controlled nuclear fusion reaction. ... Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. ... Stellarator magnetic field and magnets A stellarator is a device used to confine a hot plasma with magnetic fields in order to sustain a controlled nuclear fusion reaction. ... A magnetic mirror is a magnetic field configuration where the field strength changes when moving along a field line. ...

A new approach was outlined in the theoretical works fulfilled in 1950-1951 by I.E. Tamm and A.D. Sakharov in Soviet Union, laid the foundations of the tokamak. Experimental research of these systems started in 1956 in Kurchatov Institute, Moscow by a group of Soviet scientists lead by Lev Artsimovich. The group constructed the first tokamaks, the most successful of them being T-3 and its larger version T-4. T-4 was tested in 1968 in Novosibirsk, conducting the first quasistationary thermonuclear fusion reaction ever.^[5] The tokamak was dramatically more efficient than the other approaches of the same era, and most research after the 1970s concentrated on variations of this theme. Igor Tamm. ... Andrei Sakharov, 1943 For the historian, see Andrey Nikolayevich Sakharov. ... This article is about the fusion reactor device. ... The Kurchatov Institute is Russias leading research and development institution in the field of nuclear energy. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... Lev Andreevich Artsimovich (Арцимович, Лев Андреевич in Russian) (2. ... Novosibirsk (Russian: , pronounced ) is Russias third largest city, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast. ...

The same is true today, where very large tokamaks like ITER are hoping to demonstrate several milestones on the way to commercial power production, including a burning plasma with long burn times, high power output and online fueling. There are no guarantees that the project will be successful, as previous generations of machines have faced formerly unseen problems on many occasions. But the entire field of high temperature plasmas is much better understood now due to the earlier research, and there is considerable optimism that ITER will meet its goals. If successful, ITER would be followed by a "commercial demonstrator" system, similar to the very earliest power-producing fission reactors built in the era before wide-scale commercial deployment of larger machines started in the 1960s and 70s. Even with these goals met, there are a number of major engineering problems remaining, notably finding suitable "low activity" materials for reactor construction, demonstrating secondary systems including practical tritium extraction, and building reactor designs that allow their reactor core to be removed when it becomes embrittled due to the neutron flux. Practical generators based on the tokamak concept remain far in the future. ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering project designed to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. ... The fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state. ...

Pinch devices

A "wires array" used in Z-pinch confinement, during the building process.

The Z-pinch phenomenon has been known since the end of the 18^th century.^[6] Its use in the fusion field comes from research made on toroidal devices, initially in the Los Alamos National Laboratory right from 1952 (Perhapsatron), and in the United Kingdom from 1954 (ZETA), but its physical principles remained for a long time poorly understood and controlled. Pinch devices were studied as potential development paths to practical fusion devices through the 1950s, but studies of the data generated by these devices suggested that instabilities in the collapse mechanism would doom any pinch-type device to power levels that were far too low to suggest continuing along these lines would be practical. Most work on pinch-type devices ended by the 1960s. Recent work on the basic concept started as a result of the appearance of the "wires array" concept in the 1980s, which allowed a more efficient use of this technique. The Sandia National Laboratory runs a continuing wire-array research program with the Zpinch machine. In addition, the University of Washington's ZaP Lab have shown quiescent periods of stability hundreds of times longer than expected for plasma in a Z-pinch configuration, giving promise to the confinement technique. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (886x510, 57 KB) [edit] Summary Wires array used in Sandia Z-machine. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (886x510, 57 KB) [edit] Summary Wires array used in Sandia Z-machine. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Pinch (plasma physics). ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar... The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. ...

Laser inertial devices

The technique of implosion of a microcapsule irradiated by laser beams, the basis of laser inertial confinement, was first suggested in 1962 by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, shortly after the invention of the laser itself in 1960. Lasers of the era were very low powered, but low-level research using them nevertheless started as early as 1965. More serious research started in the early 1970s when new types of lasers offered a path to dramatically higher power levels, levels that made inertial-confinement fusion devices appear practical for the first time. By the late 1970s great strides had been made in laser power, but with each increase new problems were found in the implosion technique that suggested even more power would be required. By the 1980s these increases were so large that using the concept for generating net energy seemed remote. Most research in this field turned to weapons research, always a second line of research, as the implosion concept is somewhat similar to hydrogen bomb operation. Work on very large versions continued as a result, with the very large National Ignition Facility in the US and Laser Mégajoule in France supporting these research programs. For other uses, see Laser (disambiguation). ... Aerial view of the lab and surrounding area, facing NW. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS), a limited liability consortium comprised of Bechtel National, the University of... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 18 km (60,000 feet) above the epicenter. ... A construction worker inside NIFs 10 meter target chamber. ... Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) is an experimental inertial confinement fusion (ICF) device being built in France by the French nuclear science directorate, CEA. Laser Mégajoule plans to deliver about 1. ...

More recent work had demonstrated that significant savings in the required laser energy are possible using a technique known as "fast ignition". The savings are so dramatic that the concept appears to be a useful technique for energy production again, so much so that it is a serious contender for pre-commercial development once again. There are proposals to build an experimental facility dedicated to the fast ignition approach, known as HiPER. At the same time, advances in solid state lasers appear to improve the "driver" systems' efficiency by about ten times (to 10- 20%), savings that make even the large "traditional" machines almost practical, and might make the fast ignition concept outpace the magnetic approaches in further development. The laser-based concept has other advantages as well. The reactor core is mostly exposed, as opposed to being wrapped in a huge magnet as in the tokamak. This makes the problem of removing energy from the system somewhat simpler, and should mean that a laser-based device would be much easier to perform maintenance on, such as core replacement. Additionally, the lack of strong magnetic fields allows for a wider variety of low-activation materials, including carbon fiber, which would both reduce the frequency of such swaps, as well as reducing the radioactivity of the discarded core. In other ways the program has many of the same problems as the tokamak; practical methods of energy removal and tritium recycling need to be demonstrated, and in addition there is always the possibility that a new previously unseen collapse problem will arise. HiPER is an experimental laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) device currently undergoing preliminary design for possible construction in the European Union starting around 2010. ... A solid-state laser is a laser that uses a gain medium that is a solid, rather than a liquid such as dye lasers or a gas such as gas lasers. ... Carbon fiber composite is a strong, light and very expensive material. ...

Other systems

Throughout the history of fusion power research there have been a number of devices that have produced fusion at a much smaller level, not being suitable for energy production, but nevertheless starting to fill other roles.

Inventor of the Cathode Ray Tube Television, Philo T. Farnsworth patented his first Fusor design in 1968, a device which uses inertial electrostatic confinement. Towards the end of the 1960s, Robert Hirsch designed a variant of the Farnsworth Fusor known as the Hirsch-Meeks fusor. This variant is a considerable improvement over the Farnsworth design, and is able to generate neutron flux in the order of one billion neutrons per second. Although the efficiency was very low at first, there were hopes the device could be scaled up, but continued development demonstrated that this approach would be impractical for large machines. Nevertheless, fusion could be achieved using a 'lab bench top' type set up for the first time, at minimal cost. This type of fusor found its first application as a portable neutron generator in the late 1990s. An automated sealed reaction chamber version of this device, commercially named Fusionstar was developed by EADS but abandoned in 2001. Its successor is the NSD-Fusion neutron generator. Cathode ray tube employing electromagnetic focus and deflection Cutaway rendering of a color CRT: 1. ... This article needs cleanup. ... U.S. Patent 3,386,883 - fusor — June 4, 1968 The Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor, or simply fusor, is an apparatus designed by Philo T. Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion. ... Inertial electrostatic confinement (often abbreviated as IEC) is a concept for retaining a plasma using an electrostatic field. ... Robert Hirsch is a senior energy program adviser for Science Applications International Corporation. ... Look up efficiency in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Neutron generators are devices which contain compact linear accelerators and that produce neutrons by fusing isotopes of hydrogen together. ... The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS N.V. (EADS) is a large European aerospace corporation, formed by the merger on July 10, 2000 of Aérospatiale-Matra of France, Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) of Spain, and DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (DASA) of Germany. ... Neutron generators are devices which contain compact linear accelerators and that produce neutrons by fusing isotopes of hydrogen together. ...

Robert W. Bussard's Polywell concept is roughly similar to the Fusor design, but replaces the problematic grid with a magnetically contained electron cloud which holds the ions in position and gives an accelerating potential. Bussard claimed that a scaled up version would be capable of generating net power. Robert W. Bussard (born 1928) is an American physicist working primarily in nuclear fusion energy research. ... WB-6, the latest experiment, assembled The Polywell is a gridless inertial electrostatic confinement fusion concept utilizing multiple magnetic mirrors. ... U.S. Patent 3,386,883 - fusor — June 4, 1968 The Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor, or simply fusor, is an apparatus designed by Philo T. Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion. ...

In April 2005, a team from UCLA announced it had devised a novel way of producing fusion using a machine that "fits on a lab bench", using lithium tantalate to generate enough voltage to smash deuterium atoms together. However, the process does not generate net power. See Pyroelectric fusion. Such a device would be useful in the same sort of roles as the fusor. Binomial name Ucla xenogrammus Holleman, 1993 The largemouth triplefin, Ucla xenogrammus, is a fish of the family Tripterygiidae and only member of the genus Ucla, found in the Pacific Ocean from Viet Nam, the Philippines, Palau and the Caroline Islands to Papua New Guinea, Australia (including Christmas Island), and the... Wikinews has news related to: Tabletop fusion may lead to neutron source Lithium tantalate (LiTaO3), is a crystalline solid which possesses unique optical, piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties which make it valuable for infrared motion detectors, terahertz generation and detection, surface acoustic wave applications, cell phones and possibly pyroelectric nuclear fusion. ... Pyroelectric fusion is a technique for achieving nuclear fusion by using an electric field generated by pyroelectric crystals to accelerate ions of deuterium (tritium might also be used someday) into a metal hydride target also containing detuerium (or tritium) with sufficient kinetic energy to cause these ions to fuse together. ...

Safety and environmental issues

Accident potential

The likelihood of a catastrophic accident in a fusion reactor in which injury or loss of life occurs is much smaller than that of a fission reactor. The primary reason is that the fission products in a fission reactor continue to generate heat through beta-decay for several hours or even days after reactor shut-down, meaning that a meltdown is plausible even after the reactor has been stopped. In contrast, fusion requires precisely controlled conditions of temperature, pressure and magnetic field parameters in order to generate net energy. If the reactor were damaged, these parameters would be disrupted and the heat generation in the reactor would rapidly cease. Core of a small nuclear reactor used for research. ...

There is also no risk of a runaway reaction in a fusion reactor, since the plasma is normally burnt at optimal conditions, and any significant change will render it unable to produce excess heat. Runaway reactions are also less of a concern in modern fission reactors, as they are typically designed to spontaneously shut down under accident conditions, but in a fusion reactor such behaviour is almost unavoidable, and there is thus little need to carefully design them to achieve this extra safety feature. Although the plasma in a fusion power plant will have a volume of 1000 cubic meters or more, the density of the plasma is extremely low, and the total amount of fusion fuel in the vessel is very small, typically a few grams. If the fuel supply is closed, the reaction stops within seconds. In comparison, a fission reactor is typically loaded with enough fuel for one or several years, and no additional fuel is necessary to keep the reaction going.

In the magnetic approach, strong fields are developed in coils that are held in place mechanically by the reactor structure. Failure of this structure could release this tension and allow the magnet to "explode" outward. The severity of this event would be similar to any other industrial accident, and could be effectively stopped with a containment building similar to those used in existing (fission) nuclear generators. The laser-driven inertial approach is generally lower-stress. Although failure of the reaction chamber is possible, simply stopping fuel delivery would prevent any sort of catastrophic failure. A containment building, in its most common usage, is a steel or concrete structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. ...

Most reactor designs rely on the use of liquid lithium as both a coolant and a method for converting stray neutrons from the reaction into tritium, which is fed back into the reactor as fuel. Lithium is highly flammable, and in the case of a fire it is possible that the lithium stored on-site could be burned up and escape. In this case the tritium contents of the lithium would be released into the atmosphere, posing a radiation risk. However, calculations suggest that the total amount of tritium and other radioactive gases in a typical power plant would be so small, about 1 kg, that they would have diluted to legally acceptable limits by the time they blew as far as the plant's perimeter fence.^{[citation needed]} This article is about the chemical element named Lithium. ... Tritium (symbol T or ³H) is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. ...

Effluents during normal operation

The natural product of the fusion reaction is a small amount of helium, which is completely harmless to life and does not contribute to global warming. Of more concern is tritium, which, like other isotopes of hydrogen, is difficult to retain completely. During normal operation, some amount of tritium will be continually released. There would be no acute danger, but the cumulative effect on the world's population from a fusion economy could be a matter of concern.^{[citation needed]} The 12 year half-life of tritium would at least prevent unlimited build-up and long-term contamination without appropriate containment techniques. Current ITER designs are investigating total containment facilities for any tritium. Global warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earths near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation. ... Tritium (symbol T or ³H) is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. ...

Waste management

The large flux of high-energy neutrons in a reactor will make the structural materials radioactive. The radioactive inventory at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, but there are important differences.

The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tend to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Furthermore, there are fewer unique species, and they tend to be non-volatile and biologically less active. Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains dangerous for thousands of years, most of the radioactive material in a fusion reactor would be the reactor core itself, which would be dangerous for about 50 years, and low-level waste another 100. By 300 years the material would have the same radioactivity as coal ash. [2]. In current designs, some materials will yield waste products with long half-lives. [3] A radionuclide is an atom with an unstable nucleus. ... Fly ash (also known as a coal combustion product, or CCP) is the finely divided mineral residue resulting from the combustion of powdered coal in electric generating plants. ...

Additionally, the materials used in a fusion reactor are more "flexible" than in a fission design, where many materials are required for their specific neutron cross-sections. This allows a fusion reactor to be designed using materials that are selected specifically to be "low activation", materials that do not easily become radioactive. Vanadium, for example, would become much less radioactive than stainless steel. Carbon fibre materials are also low-activation, as well as being strong and light, and are a promising area of study for laser-inertial reactors where a magnetic field is not required. General Name, symbol, number vanadium, V, 23 Chemical series transition metals Group, period, block 5, 4, d Appearance silver-grey metal Standard atomic weight 50. ... The 630 foot (192 m) high, stainless-clad (type 304) Gateway Arch defines St. ... Carbon fiber composite is a strong, light and very expensive material. ...

In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity "burns off" within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities.

Nuclear proliferation

Although fusion power uses nuclear technology, the overlap with nuclear weapons technology is small. Tritium is a component of the trigger of hydrogen bombs, but not a major problem in production. The copious neutrons from a fusion reactor could be used to breed plutonium for an atomic bomb, but not without extensive redesign of the reactor, so that clandestine production would be easy to detect. The theoretical and computational tools needed for hydrogen bomb design are closely related to those needed for inertial confinement fusion, but have very little in common with (the more scientifically developed) magnetic confinement fusion. Tritium (symbol T or ³H) is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 18 km (60,000 feet) above the epicenter. ... This article is about the radioactive element. ... Inertial confinement fusion using lasers rapidly progressed in the late 1970s and early 1980s from being able to deliver only a few joules of laser energy (per pulse) to a fusion target to being able to deliver tens of kilojoules to a target. ... Magnetic confinement fusion is an approach to fusion energy that uses magnetic fields to confine the fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. ...

Fusion power as a sustainable energy source

Large-scale reactors using neutronic fuels (e.g. ITER) and thermal power production (turbine based) are most comparable to fission power from an engineering and economics viewpoint. Both fission and fusion power plants involve a relatively compact heat source powering a conventional steam turbine-based power plant, while producing enough neutron radiation to make activation of the plant materials problematic. The main distinction is that fusion power produces no high-level radioactive waste (though activated plant materials still need to be disposed of). There are some power plant ideas which may significantly lower the cost or size of such plants; however, research in these areas is nowhere near as advanced as in tokamaks. ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering project designed to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. ... This article is about applications of nuclear fission reactors as power sources. ... Neutron activation is the process by which neutron radiation induces radioactivity in materials. ... This article is about the fusion reactor device. ...

Fusion power has been touted as a "renewable" energy source. This is incorrect - any scaled-up use of fusion power would consume more deuterium than the Earth would receive from cosmic sources. Heavy water is the only sizable natural source of deuterium on Earth. Over time, a stable fusion economy would slowly but steadily deplete the concentration of heavy water in the planet's water bodies from the natural ratio of one deuterium atom for approximately every 6400 protium atoms (i.e. one heavy water molecule per 3200 water molecules) as depleted stocks of water return to the planet's water bodies. Unless total energy consumption on the planet was increased by several orders of magnitude, then this would not pose a serious problem for millennia as the total amount of deuterium in the planet's oceans is estimated to contain at least fifty million times the equivalent energy content in the planet's remaining fossil fuel supplies. If the entire planet scaled up its per-capita energy consumption to the level of Qatar (which consumes almost three times the energy consumed per capita compared to the United States) using fusion power, then even with a world population exceeding ten billion the planet's deuterium reserves would still last for thousands of years at least. Nonetheless, over many centuries the energy costs related to extracting deuterium would steadily increase as the concentration of deuterium in natural sources steadily decreased (assuming no improvements were made to the extraction technology and methods). In the hypothetical event that humanity sustains itself for several millennia primarily on fusion power, then deuterium depletion could potentially create major challenges for our distant descendants. Renewable energy effectively utilizes natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides and geothermal heat, which are naturally replenished. ... Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6500 of hydrogen (~154 PPM). ... Heavy water is dideuterium oxide, or D2O or 2H2O. It is chemically the same as normal water, H2O, but the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the proton found in the nucleus of any hydrogen atom. ... Fossil fuels or mineral fuels are fossil source fuels, this is, hydrocarbons found within the top layer of the earth’s crust. ... Map of countries by population — China and India, the only two countries to have a population greater than one billion, together possess more than a third of the worlds population. ...

Fusion power commonly proposes the use of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as fuel and in many current designs also lithium. Assuming a fusion energy output equal to the current global output and that this does not increase in the future, then the known current lithium reserves would last 3000 years, lithium from sea water would last 60 million years, and a more complicated fusion process using only deuterium from sea water would have fuel for 150 billion years.^[7] Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6500 of hydrogen (~154 PPM). ... For other uses, see Isotope (disambiguation). ... This article is about the chemical element named Lithium. ...

Theoretical Power plant designs

Confinement concepts

Parameter space occupied by inertial fusion energy and magnetic fusion energy devices as of the mid 1990s. The regime allowing thermonuclear ignition with high gain lies near the upper right corner of the plot.

Confinement refers to all the conditions necessary to keep a plasma dense and hot long enough to undergo fusion: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (936x793, 98 KB)Plot showing parameter space occupied by both MFE and IFE methods of attaining fusion showing specifically, the shiva, NOVA and NIF lasers at LLNL. Taken from [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (936x793, 98 KB)Plot showing parameter space occupied by both MFE and IFE methods of attaining fusion showing specifically, the shiva, NOVA and NIF lasers at LLNL. Taken from [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete... In inertial confinement fusion (ICF), nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a target – a pellet that most often contains deuterium and tritium – by the use of intense laser or ion beams. ... Magnetic Fusion Energy (MFE) is a sustained nuclear fusion reaction in a plasma that is contained by magnetic fields. ...

• Equilibrium: There must be no net forces on any part of the plasma, otherwise it will rapidly disassemble. The exception, of course, is inertial confinement, where the relevant physics must occur faster than the disassembly time.
• Stability: The plasma must be so constructed that small deviations are restored to the initial state, otherwise some unavoidable disturbance will occur and grow exponentially until the plasma is destroyed.
• Transport: The loss of particles and heat in all channels must be sufficiently slow. The word "confinement" is often used in the restricted sense of "energy confinement".

The first human-made, large-scale production of fusion reactions was the test of the hydrogen bomb, Ivy Mike, in 1952 . It was once proposed to use hydrogen bombs as a source of power by detonating them in underground caverns and then generating electricity from the heat produced, but such a power plant is unlikely ever to be constructed, for a variety of reasons. (See the PACER project for more details.) Controlled thermonuclear fusion (CTF) refers to the alternative of continuous power production, or at least the use of explosions that are so small that they do not destroy a significant portion of the machine that produces them. A standard definition of mechanical equilibrium is: A system is in mechanical equilibrium when the sum of the forces, and torque, on each particle of the system is zero. ... An important field of plasma physics is the stability of the plasma. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 18 km (60,000 feet) above the epicenter. ... The mushroom cloud from the Mike shot. ... The PACER project, carried out at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the mid-1970s, explored the possibility of a fusion power system that would involve exploding small hydrogen bombs (fusion bombs)—or, as stated in a later proposal, fission bombs—inside an underground cavity. ...

To produce self-sustaining fusion, the energy released by the reaction (or at least a fraction of it) must be used to heat new reactant nuclei and keep them hot long enough that they also undergo fusion reactions. Retaining the heat is called energy confinement and may be accomplished in a number of ways.

The hydrogen bomb really has no confinement at all. The fuel is simply allowed to fly apart, but it takes a certain length of time to do this, and during this time fusion can occur. This approach is called inertial confinement. If more than milligram quantities of fuel are used (and efficiently fused), the explosion would destroy the machine, so theoretically, controlled thermonuclear fusion using inertial confinement would be done using tiny pellets of fuel which explode several times a second. To induce the explosion, the pellet must be compressed to about 30 times solid density with energetic beams. If the beams are focused directly on the pellet, it is called direct drive, which can in principle be very efficient, but in practice it is difficult to obtain the needed uniformity. An alternative approach is indirect drive, in which the beams heat a shell, and the shell radiates x-rays, which then implode the pellet. The beams are commonly laser beams, but heavy and light ion beams and electron beams have all been investigated. Inertial confinement fusion using lasers rapidly progressed in the late 1970s and early 1980s from being able to deliver only a few joules of laser energy (per pulse) to a fusion target to being able to deliver tens of kilojoules to a target. ... An X-ray picture (radiograph), taken by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1896, of his wife, Anna Bertha Ludwigs[1] hand X-rays (or Röntgen rays) are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0. ... An ion beam is a stream of charged particles, which has many uses in electronics manufacturing (principally ion implantation) and other industries. ...

Inertial confinement produces plasmas with impressively high densities and temperatures, and appears to be best suited to weapons research, X-ray generation, very small reactors, and perhaps in the distant future, spaceflight. They rely on fuel pellets with close to a "perfect" shape in order to generate a symmetrical inward shock wave to produce the high-density plasma, and in practice these have proven difficult to produce. A recent development in the field of laser induced ICF is the use of ultrashort pulse multi-petawatt lasers to heat the plasma of an imploding pellet at exactly the moment of greatest density after it is imploded conventionally using terawatt scale lasers. This research will be carried out on the (currently being built) OMEGA EP petawatt and OMEGA lasers at the University of Rochester and at the GEKKO XII laser at the institute for laser engineering in Osaka Japan, which if fruitful, may have the effect of greatly reducing the cost of a laser fusion based power source. Introduction The shock wave is one of several different ways in which a gas in a supersonic flow can be compressed. ... This page lists examples of the power in watts produced by various different sources of energy. ... For other uses of the acronym LLE see: LLE (disambiguation) The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) is a scientific research facility which is part of the University of Rochesters south campus, located in Rochester, New York. ... The University of Rochester (UR) is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research university located in Rochester, New York. ...

At the temperatures required for fusion, the fuel is in the form of a plasma with very good electrical conductivity. This opens the possibility to confine the fuel and the energy with magnetic fields, an idea known as magnetic confinement. The Lorenz force works only perpendicular to the magnetic field, so that the first problem is how to prevent the plasma from leaking out the ends of the field lines. There are basically two solutions. Not to be confused with electrical conductance, a measure of an objects or circuits ability to conduct an electric current between two points, which is dependent on the electrical conductivity and the geometric dimensions of the conducting object. ... Magnetic field lines shown by iron filings Magnetostatics Electrodynamics Electrical Network Tensors in Relativity This box:      In physics, the magnetic field is a field that permeates space and which exerts a magnetic force on moving electric charges and magnetic dipoles. ... Magnetic Fusion Energy (MFE) is a sustained nuclear fusion reaction in a plasma that is contained by magnetic fields. ... In physics, the Lorentz force is the force exerted on a charged particle in an electromagnetic field. ...

The first is to use the magnetic mirror effect. If particles following a field line encounter a region of higher field strength, then some of the particles will be stopped and reflected. Advantages of a magnetic mirror power plant would be simplified construction and maintenance due to a linear topology and the potential to apply direct conversion in a natural way, but the confinement achieved in the experiments was so poor that this approach has been essentially abandoned. A magnetic mirror is a magnetic field configuration where the field strength changes when moving along a field line. ...

The second possibility to prevent end losses is to bend the field lines back on themselves, either in circles or more commonly in nested toroidal surfaces. The most highly developed system of this type is the tokamak, with the stellarator being next most advanced, followed by the Reversed field pinch. Compact toroids, especially the Field-Reversed Configuration and the spheromak, attempt to combine the advantages of toroidal magnetic surfaces with those of a simply connected (non-toroidal) machine, resulting in a mechanically simpler and smaller confinement area. Compact toroids still have some enthusiastic supporters but are not backed as readily by the majority of the fusion community. In geometry, a torus (pl. ... This article is about the fusion reactor device. ... Stellarator magnetic field and magnets A stellarator is a device used to confine a hot plasma with magnetic fields in order to sustain a controlled nuclear fusion reaction. ... Reversed-Field Pinch is a toroidal magnetic confinement scheme. ... A Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) is a device developed for magnetic fusion energy research that confines a plasma on closed magnetic field lines without a central penetration. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... In topology, a geometrical object or space is called simply connected if it is path-connected and every path between two points can be continuously transformed into every other. ...

Finally, there are also electrostatic confinement fusion systems, in which ions in the reaction chamber are confined and held at the center of the device by electrostatic forces, as in the Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor or Polywell, but these are not believed capable of being developed into a practical power plant. Inertial electrostatic confinement (often abbreviated as IEC) is a concept for retaining a plasma using an electrostatic field. ... This article is about the electrically charged particle. ... US3386883 - fusor -- June 4, 1968 The Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor, or simply fusor, is an apparatus designed by Philo T. Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion. ... WB-6, the latest experiment, assembled The Polywell is a gridless inertial electrostatic confinement fusion concept utilizing multiple magnetic mirrors. ...

Other approaches

A more subtle technique is to use more unusual particles to catalyse fusion. The best known of these is Muon-catalyzed fusion which uses muons, which behave somewhat like electrons and replace the electrons around the atoms. These muons allow atoms to get much closer and thus reduce the kinetic energy required to initiate fusion. Muons require more energy to produce than we can get back from muon-catalysed fusion, making this approach impractical for the generation of power. Muon-catalyzed fusion is a process allowing nuclear fusion to take place at room temperature. ...

Some researchers have reported excess heat, neutrons, tritium, helium and other nuclear effects in so-called cold fusion systems. In 2004, a peer review panel was commissioned by the US Department of Energy to study these claims[4] [5]: two thirds of its members found the evidences of nuclear reactions unconvincing, five found the evidence "somewhat convincing" and one was entirely convinced. In 2006, Mosier-Boss and Szpak, researchers in the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego, reported evidence of nuclear reactions, which have been independently replicated.^[8] This article is about the nuclear reaction. ... The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ... A testing facility at SPAWAR San Diego Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego (SSC San Diego) is the U.S. Navys research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support center for command, control and communication systems and ocean surveillance. ...

Research into sonoluminescence induced fusion, sometimes known as "bubble fusion", also continues, although it is met with as much skepticism as cold fusion is by most of the scientific community. Long exposure image of multi-bubble sonoluminescence created by a high intensity ultrasonic horn immersed in a beaker of liquid. ... Bubble fusion or sonofusion is the common name for a nuclear fusion reaction hypothesized to occur during sonoluminescence, an extreme form of acoustic cavitation; officially, this reaction is termed acoustic inertial confinement fusion (AICF) since the inertia of the collapsing bubble wall confines the energy causing a rise in temperature. ...

Subsystems

In fusion research, achieving a fusion energy gain factor Q = 1 is called breakeven and is considered a significant although somewhat artificial milestone. Ignition refers to an infinite Q, that is, a self-sustaining plasma where the losses are made up for by fusion power without any external input. In a practical fusion reactor, some external power will always be required for things like current drive, refueling, profile control, and burn control. A value on the order of Q = 20 will be required if the plant is to deliver much more energy than it uses internally. The fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state. ...

There have been many design studies for fusion power plants. Despite many differences, there are several systems that are common to most. To begin with, a fusion power plant, like a fission power plant, is customarily divided into the nuclear island and the balance of plant. The balance of plant is the conventional part that converts high-temperature heat into electricity via steam turbines. It is much the same in a fusion power plant as in a fission or coal power plant. In a fusion power plant, the nuclear island has a plasma chamber with an associated vacuum system, surrounded by a plasma-facing components (first wall and divertor) maintaining the vacuum boundary and absorbing the thermal radiation coming from the plasma, surrounded in turn by a blanket where the neutrons are absorbed to breed tritium and heat a working fluid that transfers the power to the balance of plant. If magnetic confinement is used, a magnet system, using primarily cryogenic superconducting magnets, is needed, and usually systems for heating and refueling the plasma and for driving current. In inertial confinement, a driver (laser or accelerator) and a focusing system are needed, as well as a means for forming and positioning the pellets. This article is about applications of nuclear fission reactors as power sources. ... A rotor of a modern steam turbine, used in a power plant A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into useful mechanical work. ...

Inertial confinement fusion implosion on the NOVA laser creates "microsun" conditions of tremendously high density and temperature.

Although the standard solution for electricity production in fusion power plant designs is conventional steam turbines using the heat deposited by neutrons, there are also designs for direct conversion of the energy of the charged particles into electricity. These are of little value with a D-T fuel cycle, where 80% of the power is in the neutrons, but are indispensable with aneutronic fusion, where less than 1% is. Direct conversion has been most commonly proposed for open-ended magnetic configurations like magnetic mirrors or Field-Reversed Configurations, where charged particles are lost along the magnetic field lines, which are then expanded to convert a large fraction of the random energy of the fusion products into directed motion. The particles are then collected on electrodes at various large electrical potentials. Typically the claimed conversion efficiency is in the range of 80%, but the converter may approach the reactor itself in size and expense. Image File history File links Fusion_target_implosion_on_NOVA_laser. ... Image File history File links Fusion_target_implosion_on_NOVA_laser. ... View down Novas laser bay between two banks of beamlines. ... Aneutronic fusion is any form of fusion power where no more than 1% of the total energy released is carried by neutrons. ... A magnetic mirror is a magnetic field configuration where the field strength changes when moving along a field line. ... A Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) is a device developed for magnetic fusion energy research that confines a plasma on closed magnetic field lines without a central penetration. ...

Materials

Main article: International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility

Developing materials for fusion reactors has long been recognized as a problem nearly as difficult and important as that of plasma confinement, but it has received only a fraction of the attention. The neutron flux in a fusion reactor is expected to be about 100 times that in existing pressurized water reactors (PWR). Each atom in the blanket of a fusion reactor is expected to be hit by a neutron and displaced about a hundred times before the material is replaced. Furthermore the high-energy neutrons will produce hydrogen and helium in various nuclear reactions that tends to form bubbles at grain boundaries and result in swelling, blistering or embrittlement. One also wishes to choose materials whose primary components and impurities do not result in long-lived radioactive wastes. Finally, the mechanical forces and temperatures are large, and there may be frequent cycling of both. The International Fusion Material Irradiation Facility, also known as IFMIF, is an international scientific research program designed to test materials for suitability for use in a fusion reactor. ... Pressurized water reactors (PWRs) (also VVER if of Russian design) are generation II nuclear power reactors that use ordinary water under high pressure as coolant and neutron moderator. ...

The problem is exacerbated because realistic material tests must expose samples to neutron fluxes of a similar level for a similar length of time as those expected in a fusion power plant. Such a neutron source is nearly as complicated and expensive as a fusion reactor itself would be. Proper materials testing will not be possible in ITER, and a proposed materials testing facility, IFMIF, is still at the design stage in 2005. ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering project designed to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. ... The International Fusion Material Irradiation Facility is an international scientific research program designed to test materials for suitability for use in a fusion reactor. ...

The material of the plasma facing components (PFC) is a special problem. The PFC do not have to withstand large mechanical loads, so neutron damage is much less of an issue. They do have to withstand extremely large thermal loads, up to 10 MW/m², which is a difficult but solvable problem. Regardless of the material chosen, the heat flux can only be accommodated without melting if the distance from the front surface to the coolant is not more than a centimeter or two. The primary issue is the interaction with the plasma. One can choose either a low-Z material, typified by graphite although for some purposes beryllium might be chosen, or a high-Z material, usually tungsten with molybdenum as a second choice. Use of liquid metals (lithium, gallium, tin) has also been proposed, e.g., by injection of 1-5 mm thick streams flowing at 10 m/s on solid substrates. See also: List of elements by atomic number In chemistry and physics, the atomic number (also known as the proton number) is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom. ... For other uses, see Graphite (disambiguation). ... General Name, symbol, number beryllium, Be, 4 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, period, block 2, 2, s Appearance white-gray metallic Standard atomic weight 9. ... See also: List of elements by atomic number In chemistry and physics, the atomic number (also known as the proton number) is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom. ... For other uses, see Tungsten (disambiguation). ... General Name, Symbol, Number molybdenum, Mo, 42 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 6, 5, d Appearance gray metallic Standard atomic weight 95. ...

If graphite is used, the gross erosion rates due to physical and chemical sputtering would be many meters per year, so one must rely on redeposition of the sputtered material. The location of the redeposition will not exactly coincide with the location of the sputtering, so one is still left with erosion rates that may be prohibitive. An even larger problem is the tritium co-deposited with the redeposited graphite. The tritium inventory in graphite layers and dust in a reactor could quickly build up to many kilograms, representing a waste of resources and a serious radiological hazard in case of an accident. The consensus of the fusion community seems to be that graphite, although a very attractive material for fusion experiments, cannot be the primary PFC material in a commercial reactor. Sputtering is a physical vapor deposition, PVD process whereby atoms in a solid target material are ejected into the gas phase due to bombardment of the material by energetic ions. ...

The sputtering rate of tungsten can be orders of magnitude smaller than that of carbon, and tritium is not so easily incorporated into redeposited tungsten, making this a more attractive choice. On the other hand, tungsten impurities in a plasma are much more damaging than carbon impurities, and self-sputtering of tungsten can be high, so it will be necessary to ensure that the plasma in contact with the tungsten is not too hot (a few tens of eV rather than hundreds of eV). Tungsten also has disadvantages in terms of eddy currents and melting in off-normal events, as well as some radiological issues.

Economics

It is far from clear whether nuclear fusion will be economically competitive with other forms of power. The many estimates that have been made of the cost of fusion power cover a wide range, and indirect costs of and subsidies for fusion power and its alternatives make any cost comparison difficult. The low estimates for fusion appear to be competitive with but not drastically lower than other alternatives. The high estimates are several times higher than alternatives.^{[citation needed]}

While fusion power is still in early stages of development, vast sums have been and continue to be invested in research. In the EU almost € 10 billion was spent on fusion research up to the end of the 90s, and the new ITER reactor alone is budgeted at € 10 billion. It is estimated that up to the point of possible implementation of electricity generation by nuclear fusion, R&D will need further promotion totalling around € 60-80 billion over a period of 50 years or so (of which € 20-30 billion within the EU)[6]. In the current EU research programme (FP6), nuclear fusion research receives € 750 million (excluding ITER funding), compared with € 810 million for all non-nuclear energy research combined [7], putting research into fusion power well ahead of that of any single rivaling technology. ITER is an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) research/engineering project designed to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor. ... The Sixth Framework Programme (abbreviated FP6) is the current (2002-2006) Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development set up by the EU in order to fund and promote European research and technological development. ...

Unfortunately, despite optimism dating back to the 1950s about the wide-scale harnessing of fusion power, there are still significant barriers standing between current scientific understanding and technological capabilities and the practical realization of fusion as an energy source.^{[citation needed]} Research, while making steady progress, has also continually thrown up new difficulties.^{[citation needed]} Therefore it remains unclear that an economically viable fusion plant is even possible."^[9] An editorial in New Scientist magazine explained that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."