In:
Physics of Plasmas, AIP Publishing, Vol. 13, No. 5 ( 2006-05-01)
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 de livered 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.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1070-664X
,
1089-7674
Language:
English
Publisher:
AIP Publishing
Publication Date:
2006
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1472746-8
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