Bulletin of the American Physical Society
64th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics
Volume 67, Number 15
Monday–Friday, October 17–21, 2022; Spokane, Washington
Session BM10: Mini-Conference: Public-Private Partnerships for Fusion Energy ILive Streamed
|
Hide Abstracts |
Chair: Diane Demers, Xantho Technology; Walter Guttenfelder, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Room: 206 CD |
Monday, October 17, 2022 9:30AM - 9:40AM |
BM10.00001: Introduction Walter Guttenfelder . |
Monday, October 17, 2022 9:40AM - 9:50AM |
BM10.00002: DOE perspective on public-private partnerships Scott C Hsu . |
Monday, October 17, 2022 9:50AM - 10:00AM |
BM10.00003: ARPA-E updates Ahmed Diallo . |
Monday, October 17, 2022 10:00AM - 10:15AM |
BM10.00004: Commonwealth Fusion Systems path to commercialization Dan Brunner Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is pursuing the high-field path to climate-relevant fusion energy through the SPARC and ARC tokamaks as well as a set of dedicated R&D programs. Leveraging the scientific understanding of tokamaks, and recent breakthroughs in high-temperature superconductors CFS is aiming to commercialize fusion energy in the early 2030s by focusing on simplified systems that can be delivered quickly without large extrapolations in plasma physics performance. CFS achieved its first major technical milestone in collaboration with MIT in summer 2021 with the SPARC Toroidal Field Model Coil project, demonstrating the first magnetic fusion scale high-field, high-temperature superconducting magnet. Started in parallel, construction of the SPARC tokamak in Devens, MA is now well underway. This is to begin operations in 2025 and demonstrate net fusion energy shortly thereafter and be capable of achieving routine high gain high-power DT discharges. This machine will close many of the remaining plasma physics gaps on the path to a simplified pulsed tokamak power plant. In parallel, CFS is undertaking component level R&D on major ARC subsystems and preparing the design for an ARC pilot plant it intends to construct. CFS has raised over $2B in private funding and assembled a team of over 300 employees to achieve its goals. While CFS has been working since its inception with the national labs and universities there is a tremendous amount more the governmens can do to support the commercializing of fusion energy. CFS strongly supports expanding INFUSE, the establishment of a milestone-based pilot plant program, the construction of needed test facilities, a redirection of the base program in line with FESAC, NAS, Congressional and Administration policy goals, all towards nurturing a bourgeoning diverse fusion industrial enterprise with relevance to climate change mitigation. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 10:15AM - 10:30AM |
BM10.00005: Zap Energy: a Public-Private Partnership Success Story Benjamin J Levitt, Brian A Nelson, Uri Shumlak, Clement S Goyon, Jacob T Banasek, Simon C Bott-Suzuki, Glen A Wurden, Harry S McLean, Drew P Higginson, James M Mitrani, Amanda E Youmans, Josh Brown, Bethany L Goldblum, Thibault A Laplace, Bruno S Bauer, Aidan W Klemmer, Stephan R Fuelling The sheared-flow-stabilized (SFS) Z-pinch concept, developed at University of Washington with LLNL collaborators, is now on a path to commercialization at Zap Energy. Zap Energy has a long history of support from ARPA-E programs, starting with the 2015 ALPHA funding at UW. After incorporating in 2017, Zap Energy continued with an OPEN award in 2019. While securing three private funding rounds, Zap Energy has participated in additional ARPA-E-funded public-private partnerships which have focused on plasma diagnostics. Zap Energy has benefited greatly from collaborations with ARPA-E funded Fusion Capability Teams, both through the BETHE and Fusion Diagnostics programs. As a small-scale startup attempting to commercialize nuclear fusion, these programs offer rapid access to deep technical expertise as well as advanced instrumentation. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 10:30AM - 10:45AM |
BM10.00006: The Focused Energy roadmap for Inertial Fusion Energy Pravesh K Patel, Markus Roth, Todd Ditmire, Gabriel Schaumann, Gilles Cheriaux, L. C Jarrott, Stefano Atzeni, Javier Honrubia, Andrea Hannasch, Florian Wasser, Matthias Bronner, Marc Zimmer, Doug Hammond, Thomas Forner Focused Energy aims to demonstrate a prototype fusion power plant based on laser-driven inertial fusion energy (IFE). The scientific basis for energy production is proton fast ignition (PFI), an advanced inertial confinement fusion (ICF) scheme that separates the process of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel compression and heating to produce the high target gains (G>100) needed for commercial fusion. It builds upon the recent succesful demonstration of ignition (with G~1) at the National Ignition Facility via the conventional central hot-spot inertial fusion scheme. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 10:45AM - 11:00AM |
BM10.00007: The high field stellarator path to commercial fusion energy Randall Volberg, David T Anderson, John M Canik, Paul Harris, Chris C Hegna The stellarator offers the surest approach to reliable fusion energy production, offering many advantages as a power plant. The inherently steady-state, disruption-free operation leads to a lean reactor concept with fewer subsystems, low recirculating power, and longer component lifetimes. Type One Energy is leveraging recent breakthroughs in magnet technology, advanced manufacturing, and simulation and design approaches to radically accelerate development and demonstrate the commercial viability of the stellarator approach to fusion. Our strategy takes advantage of multiple demonstrated successes in the optimization, construction, and operation of stellarators which have established the physics basis of this development path. The path to realizing a stellarator pilot plant, including near-term demonstration projects, will be presented. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 11:00AM - 11:15AM |
BM10.00008: General Atomics Roadmap for an Advanced Tokamak Fusion Pilot Plant Brian A Grierson General Atomics is pursuing an integrated advanced tokamak fusion pilot plant design and a technology roadmap that combines plasma physics optimization with practical engineering considerations. In order to contribute to electricity demands expected in a low-carbon energy market, fusion science and technology must be rapidly advanced and demonstrate the capability and attractiveness of fusion power. Key considerations are given to maturing the technology required for a fusion pilot plant, and defining the pilot plant's role in maturing a first-of-a-kind commercial fusion power plant. General Atomics has the expertise and capability to raise the readiness of critical fusion technologies. We find that power extraction and tritium breeding may benefit from the use of SiC-based materials, which offer advantages for the blanket concept with inherent safety benefits and high-temperature compatibility for high thermal efficiency. Benefits and challenges associated the fusion core are well known, and therefore the implications of design choices on reliability, maintenance, safety and supply chain require increased attention and will be discussed. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 11:15AM - 11:30AM |
BM10.00009: Marvel Fusion: Ultrafast High-intensity Laser-driven Fusion with Nanostructured Targets Marius Schollmeier, Sven Steinke, Christian Bild, Heike Freund, Erhard Gaul, Dan Nebe, Gaurav Raj, Hartmut Ruhl, Moritz von der Linden, Georg Korn Nuclear fusion as a future energy source is increasingly being recognized. A key challenge is how nuclear fusion plants can be designed to not only produce more energy than they consume but also to be economically viable. Fusion economics weighs the cost of building and operating a power plant against the expected energy yield. The resulting cent/kWh metric for the levelized cost of electricity improves through either cost reductions or yield increases. Marvel Fusion seeks to reduce cost and increase yield by lowering the complexity of the overall plant design. Reduced complexity results from the use of nanostructured targets and advanced short-pulse lasers, as well as the possibility to use aneutronic fusion reactions (such as proton-boron11), which avoid fast neutrons as the carrier of fusion energy release. A further advantage is that there is no need for using and storing tritium as required in the DT thermonuclear fusion concept. Marvel Fusion is developing a new non-thermal approach for fusion energy production using highly efficient, nanoscopic particle acceleration driven by ultrafast high-intensity lasers in bespoke nanostructured fuel targets [Ruhl & Korn, arXiv:2202.03170]. In this presentation, key elements of this approach will be outlined on our roadmap to fusion energy production. Together, this could result in advantageous economics for the large-scale deployment of fusion power. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 11:30AM - 11:45AM |
BM10.00010: The Spherical Tokamak with HTS magnets route to commercial fusion power Paul R Thomas . |
Monday, October 17, 2022 11:45AM - 12:00PM |
BM10.00011: The physics basis for a Q≈1 high-field, compact, axisymmetric mirror Cary B Forest A public-private team has been formed to pursue the axisymmetric mirror path to fusion: ARPA-E has funded the construction of an high temperature superconducting prototype called the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM), that involves the UW Madison, a new startup company Realta Fusion, MIT and CFS. The 3 step development path begins with a small mirror, WHAM1.0, to establish MHD stable plasmas relying on vortex and FLR stabilization by fast ions of a high mirror ratio simple mirror, a reactor scale simple mirror WHAM++ that uses 100+ keV neutral beam injection to validate the confinement, macro and microstability in a simple mirror, and finally a tandem mirror that uses two WHAM++ configurations with ~1MeV, rf heated ions for the end plugs of a HTS Axisymmetric Magnetic Mirror Reactor (Hammir). This talk will review the physics basis for WHAM++ and address the TRLs for magnets, heating sytems, MHD techniques, and microstability for mirror distribution functions. I will rely on bounce averaged drift kinetic/Fokker-Plank solutions for mirror confined fast ions that show Q>1 is acheivable in a simple mirror with mirror ratio > 10. Direct energy recovery greatly improves prospects even for electrical breakeven. MHD stability will come from FLR stabilization for m>1, and plasma shaping, divertors, vortex and feedback stabilization at high β for m=1. Microinstabilty will rely upon sloshing ions and high mirror ratio. A direct energy convertor appropriate for the axisymmetric exhaust of the mirror should be capable of recovering more than 50% of the lost energy thereby increasing Q even further. Breakeven is possible even for small energy input (several MWs). Applications of WHAM++ include use as a blanket test facility, a minor actinide burner and as a source of efficient process heat. Power production for an industrial scale will be with Hammir. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 12:00PM - 12:15PM |
BM10.00012: Leveraging Public-Private Partnerships for the Development of PFRC Christopher A Galea, Stephanie J Thomas, Sangeeta P Vinoth, Samuel A Cohen, Michael A Paluszek Princeton Fusion Systems (PFS) is collaborating with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to commercialize the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration (PFRC). The PFRC is specifically designed to be small and clean, producing 1/1000 the neutron radiation per unit power of the mainline approaches to fusion by leveraging the FRC's high beta to utilize advanced fuels. The resulting 1 to 10 MW portable microreactors would have unique applications including modular power plants, space power and propulsion, military forward power, off-grid industrial and civilian sites, developing nations, and emergency power. DOE, NASA, and ARPA-E have funded development to date and the team was just selected for three INFUSE awards. These awards have supported the PFRC-1 and the currently operating PFRC-2. PFS seeks to leverage public-private partnerships to help fund the development of a fully superconducting proof of concept testbed, the PFRC-3, at a private facility. The next step in our roadmap is PFRC-4, a pilot plant that would produce net electricity with our target fuels of Deuterium and Helium-3. PFS is also developing power electronics for fusion systems with ARPA-E. This product line will also benefit from further public-private support and will provide an independent revenue stream. |
Monday, October 17, 2022 12:15PM - 12:30PM |
BM10.00013: Transforming the Way We Energize the World John W Brister General Fusion pursues a fast, efficient, and collaborative path to practical fusion power. We are completing an aggressive development plan to deliver economical carbon-free fusion energy with our proprietary Magnetized Target Fusion technology by the 2030s. Our mission is supported by a global syndicate of leading institutional investors, venture capital firms, and technology pioneers, together with governments across North America and Europe. General Fusion collaborates with a global network of partners to create a sustainable future built on cleaner energy, better materials, and a comprehensive life cycle approach to the world's infrastructure. Founded in 2002, we are headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with additional centers co-located with internationally recognized fusion research laboratories near London, U.K., and in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700