January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series Introduction to Fusion Energy Research Prospects, promises and problems: An introduction to the physics and policies behind fusion energy Anne E. White Assistant Professor, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT whatisfusion.org
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January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series
Introduction to Fusion Energy Research
Prospects, promises and problems: An introduction to the physics and policies behind fusion energy
Anne E. WhiteAssistant Professor, Department of NuclearScience and Engineering, MIT
whatisfusion.org
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 2
Overview of this talk
• Introduction to fusion
• Inertial confinement fusion
• Magnetic confinement fusion
• Survey of research programs around the world
• The Future
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 3
FUSION
Nuclear Fusion is a physical process, combing light nuclei (e.g. hydrogen) to make heavier nuclei (e.g. helium). Process that powers the stars.
Fusion Energy Research refers to an entire branch of science dedicated to harnessing fusion processes; to build a fusion reactor, and build a fusion power plant
There has been tremendous progress in fusion energy research in recent years
Fusion energy research pushes frontiers of science and technology
Fusion energy research is an exciting, fast-moving international research area
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 4
Matter and Energy
The equivalence is described by the famous equation*
where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light.
*Nature 438, 1096-1097 (22 December 2005) | doi:10.1038/4381096a; Published online 21 December 2005
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 5
Four Fundamental Forces of Nature Strong force:Holds atomic nucleus together
Weak Force:Needed to build up heavy nuclei in periodic table;Transforms quarks
ElectromagnetismInteractions between chargedparticles, exchange of photons
GravityAttraction of objects with mass to each other
1
1/137
10-6
60-39
Weaker
Stronger
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 6
• Electromagnetic force:when you rub balloon on your hair,
when you play with magnets, when you use a battery…
• Electromagnetic force: holds atoms together in molecules, holds molecules together (chemistry)
• Gravitational force:objects dropped fall to earthMoon orbits earthEarth orbits sunhttp://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 7
• The nucleus contains protons (+) and neutrons (no charge)
• Protons (+) in nucleus want to repel each other due to electromagnetic forces
• Nucleus is held together by the strong force (nuclear force)
• Powerful enough at atomic scale to overcome repulsion of protons (+)
Oxygen Atom
Oxygen Nucleus
Nuclear forces:
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 8
Four Fundamental Forces of Nature Strong force:Holds atomic nucleus together
Weak Force:Needed to build up heavy nuclei in periodic table;Transforms quarks
ElectromagnetismInteractions between chargedparticles, exchange of photons
GravityAttraction of objects with mass to each other
1
1/137
10-6
60-39
Weaker
StrongerForces of natureare harnessed totransform energy fromone form to another
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 9
Units to measure energy and power
“Joule” or “J” is a unit of Energy
“Watt” or “W” is a unit of power
Power is energy used per second 1 Watt =
Your 60 Watt light bulb uses 60 Joules of energy per second
1 Joule1 second
A “60 W equivalent” CFLActually is only 13 W :Same time, less power, less $
A 60 W incandescent light bulb, tungstenfilament
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 10
Hard hit baseball (100 mph)1000 Joules
Lifting World Series Trophyabove your head (30 lbs)150 Joules
Hard thrown football (60 mph) 60 Joules
How much energy is a “Joule” anyway ?
January 14, 2014 11
50 Million
kJ/g
350 Million
kJ/g
Chemical Energy
mii.org
15 kJ/g
40 kJ/g
20kJ/g
Nuclear Energy
FISSION FUSION
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 12
•Electromagnetic force: Burning materials breaks chemical bonds releasing stored energy
• Coal power plant•Your car’s gas engine• Your fireplace
•Gravitational force: Falling water transforms potential energy into kinetic energy
• Hydroelectric power plant
•Nuclear Force: Uranium interacts with low energy neutrons, breaking apart via fission reactions
• Fission power plant
Matter and Energy
Most of the Energy in the US is produced from gas and coalcauses problems of pollution, climate change effects
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 13
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 14
Global Energy Production per Year~ 4 x 1020 J
The US contributes 25% of this total~ 1020 J/year per person in the US~ 10 kW per person in the US per
year
Fusion energy can contribute to solvingworld’s energy problems
Humans use a lot of energy
Fission refers to breaking apart heavier nuclei to make lighter nuclei
Nuclear binding energy is released in the process
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 15
50 Million
kJ/g
• A low energy neutron(room temperature)
•Because neutron is neutral, it caninteract at close range with a bigpositive (+) charged nucleus
•Excited nucleus will split apart, releasing nuclear energy in the process, and more neutrons
•Produced neutrons cancause another fission reaction
•Chain reaction
Fission is so easy, the Earth has done it naturally!
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 16
• Oklo (former Republic of Gabon) Uranium ore samples showed lower 235U concentrations than found elsewhere; lower than normal
• Depletion of 235U through fission only way this could have happened
• Oklo had 235U underground, in water,… 2 Billion years ago, there was a natural nuclear (fission) reactor
• Other evidence: Neodymium (Nd) & Ruthenium(Ru) isotopes from ore match reactor concentrations notnatural abundances
Conrad built a fusion reactor.SCIENCE FICTIONConrad built a device that generated fusion reactions. SCIENCE FACT
Fusion reactions are produced in table top (small)devices all the time. You too can build an – look here: http://www.fusor.net/. Or here http://iec.neep.wisc.edu/
The neutrons generated are used in a variety of applications … but NOT FUSION ENERGY
http://iec.neep.wisc.edu/
Table top fusion does happen…and it is very useful !
January 14, 2014
Compact Neutron Generators for Medical, Homeland Security, and Planetary Exploration, Reijonen, J, roceedings of 2005 Particle Accelerator Conference, Knoxville, Tennessee: 49–53
Naranjo, B., Gimzewski, J. & Putterman, S. Nature 434, 1115−1117 (2005); doi:10.1038/nature03575 24
Shoot beams of atomic nuclei at other atoms
Fusion of deuterium atoms (D + D) results in the formation of a He-3 ion and a high energy neutron
Neutron generators have applications in medicine, security, and materials analysis.
•Used to determine quality of oil •Used in homeland security, airport luggage screens•medical applications, medical research•Laboratory neutron source for other experiments
Can’t make these fusion devicesinto fusion reactors*
For fusion energy applications,Fusion must be hot. 100 Mill degrees!
*known physics
MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series
25 1/15/2014 AEWhite NUF 2013
When you heat anything to 100 Million degrees you create a new state of matter - PLASMA
26
PLASMAS behave in very complicated ways,Need new branch of physics to deal with this
• Very hot (minimum 5 eV; 60,000°K)
– Electrons stripped from atomic nuclei
– Excellent electrical conductivity
– Significant interaction with electromagnetic fields and radiation
• Quasi-neutral
– But small deviations lead to strong plasma-generated electric and magnetic fields
• The quest for controlled fusion energy led to the rapid development of the science of plasma physics
– Important for understanding of astrophysics, space sciences, etc.
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 27
• Gravitational Confinement (300 W/m3)
– In a deep gravitational well, even fast particles are trapped.
– Very slow: E ~ 106 years, burn-up time = 1010
years
• Inertial Confinement (1028 W/m3)
– Heat and compress plasma to ignite plasma before constituents fly apart.
– Works for the H-bomb
• Magnetic Confinement (107 W/m3)
Uses the unique properties of ionized
particles in a magnetic field
Sun
NIF
ITER
Hold hot (1 Million degree) plasma together for fusion
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 28
Overview of this talk
• Introduction to fusion
• Inertial confinement fusion
• Magnetic confinement fusion
• Survey of research programs around the world
• The Future
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 29
Using inertia to confine a plasma
National Ignition Facility (NIF)
NIF from the outside looks like a giant metal sphere withmetal port holes
NIF on the inside has many instruments aimed at the tinyplasma in center that will beignited
https://lasers.llnl.gov/
Recipe for Inertial Confinement FusionRecipe from https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nic/icf/
• Hollow, spherical plastic capsule about two millimeters in diameter
• Fill it with 150 micrograms (less than one-millionth of a pound) of a mixture of D and T
• Lasers generate 500 trillion watts over 20 billionths of a second —the equivalent of five million million 100-watt light bulbs
• Focus all that laser power onto the surface of the capsule, making a very dense, very hot plasma
• Wait ten billionths of a second – then ignition.
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 30
Scientific Missions of NIFhttps://lasers.llnl.gov/
• National Security• Ensure the nation's security without
nuclear weapons testing• NIF replicates the conditions that
exist inside a thermonuclear weapon
• Energy for the Future• Fusion power plant based on laser
fusion/inertial confinement
• Understanding the Universe• How did the universe come into
being, and how did the stars and planets form? What happens in supernovas and black holes?
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 31
Physics of materials under extreme pressures and temperatures: high energy density physics (HEDP)
wikipedia.org
Inertial Confinement Experiment in France:Laser Mégajoule (LMJ)
• Laser Mégajoule (LMJ), being constructed in France by the French nuclear science directorate (CEA). First experiments end of 2014.
• LMJ plans to deliver about 1.8 MJ of laser energy to its targets, similar to NIF, and achieve fusion gain of 10, like NIF (Charles Lion, Journal of Physics: Conference Series 244 (2010) 012003doi:10.1088/1742-6596/244/1/012003)
• LMJ is the largest ICF experiment to be built outside the US
• Like NIF, Laser Mégajoule's primary mission is to provide data to validate simulations used to maintain nuclear weapon stockpile integrity http://www-lmj.cea.fr/fr/lmj/index.htm
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 32
• K. Mima, Journal of Physics: Conference Series 244 (2010) 012005
• Science China Technological Sciences July 2013, Volume 56, Issue 7, pp 1571-1588 Review on the recent progress of laser frontiers in China, ZunQi Lin et al.
• Journal of Physics: Conference Series Volume 112 Part 3 W Zheng et al 2008 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 112 032009 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/112/3/032009, Status of the SG-III solid-state laser facility
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 33
Inertial Confinement Experiments in China, Russia, Japan, Korea…
Best devices for magnetically confining hot plasma
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 38
From the outside, a tokamak looks like a giant metal donutwith the hot (100 Million degree) plasma fuel (D-T) inside
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 39
Tokamaks have beaten every other confinement configuration todate on the quality of confinement and fusion energy production
• TFTR and JET with D-T fuelmade a lot of fusion energy
•Establishes basic “scientific feasibility”
•power out less than power in
•Q = 0.65 means you put in 25 MWto get 16 MW out
•Fusion self-heating, characteristic of a “burning plasma”, has yet to be explored
The technologies needed for net power must still be demonstrated.
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 40
Magnetic fusion, hot thermonuclear fusion, in tokamaksis currently best path forward for fusion power plants
DEMO
efda.org
•Over 50 years of fusion research
•Key performance factors haveIncreased by factor of 10,000
•Current experiments nowonly factor of 10 away fromplasma conditions needed for a power plant
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 41
Tokamak is the fusion device that EVERY countrypursuing fusion has chosen as the flagship experiment.
Image, Maul NUF 2008 talk
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 42
The world is embarking on the experiment ITER
ITER is based on the 'tokamak' concept of magnetic confinement
Fuel—D and T — heated to temperatures in excess of 150 million°C, a hot plasma
Strong magnetic fields are used to keep the plasma away from the walls
Magnetic fields are produced by superconducting coils surrounding the vessel, and by an electrical current driven through the plasma
First plasma at this facility is sometimin 2020s.
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 43
Scientific mission of the tokamak experiment ITER
ITER will demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy.
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 44
Scientific mission of the tokamak experiment ITER
ITER will demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy.
•ITER will allow scientists to study reactor-scale burning plasmas and explore technical challenges related to the development of a power- producing fusion reactor.
•ITER will be the largest tokamak ever constructed and is designed to deliver up to 10 times more energy than it requires for plasma heating, Q = 10
•ITER will be constructed in France, using components fabricated by partner nations
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 45
Every country developing fusion energy shares a common roadmap
e.g. JET
Existingtokamaks
ITER
DEMO“next step” facility
Fusion Power Plant
China's Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR)
Need intermediate step between ITER and DEMO: Fusion Technology Development
• ITER can explore many, but not all, technology problems facing MFE
• Long-life Blanket technology, how to capture energy from neutrons?
• High heat flux on plasma facing wall, advanced materials?
• Tritium control; retention and recycling, maintain tritium inventory
• Etc.January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 46
ITER
DEMO
?
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 47
Overview of this talk
• Introduction to fusion
• Inertial confinement fusion
• Magnetic confinement fusion
• Survey of research programs around the world
• The Future
General Layout for a National Fusion Policy
• Broad Energy Policy: describes energy goals (environment, clean energy, self-sufficient, economics, etc.)
• Energy policy directed at innovation and competiveness (R&D)
• Specific policies related to nuclear energy development• Even more specific policy relevant for fusion
• Major Experiments in Fusion Roadmap• Domestic experiment – Inertial Confinement Fusion• Domestic experiment–Magnetic Confinement Fusion• ITER – magnetic confinement – under construction• A “next step facility” and/or international DEMO
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 48
Europe
• Energy Policy: 2050 Roadmap • Horizon 2020: innovation and competiveness• EURATOM• EFDA
• Major Experiments in Fusion Roadmap• JET and W7X –magnetic confinement• LMJ – Inertial confinement Fusion (like NIF in US)• ITER – magnetic confinement – under construction• DEMO - planned
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 49
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 50
Energy Policy in Europe, 2050 Roadmap
• European Commission• Policy brochures website• http://europa.eu/pol/index_e
n.htm
• Main Goals:
• Cut greenhouse gas levels
• Cut energy consumption• Increase renewables in
energy mixhttp://www.greenprospectsasia.com
Energy Policy in Europe, Horizon 2020
• Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation program ever
• Nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to private investment
• Meant to help streamline taking technology from the laboratories to market
• Horizon 2020 is aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 51
• EURATOM Treaty: Covers fission and fusion (Euratom.org)
• EURATOM is second of two famous "Treaties of Rome” signed in Rome in March 1957.
• The first treaty established a European Economic Community (EEC) and the second established a European Atomic Energy Community, better known as Euratom.
• (original signatories): Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, West Germany
• Still in effect in EU EURATOM is part of Horizon 2020• The yearly fusion budget is 145.6 Million Euro/year for FY 2014-2018.
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 52
Energy Policy in Europe: Specific Nuclear Energy Policy
EFDA – international agreement
• EFDA = European Fusion Development Agreement
• Provides the umbrella for all fusion research laboratories in Europe.
• It is part of the EURATOM program of the European Commission
• 28 countries signed agreement to work on fusion as energy source for future in 1999
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 53
www.efda.org
JET and ITER
China• 12th Five-year Plan on Greenhouse Emission Control (guofa [2011] No.
41)• Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries (Amended
in 2011)• Several specific fusion policies
• Major Experiments in Fusion Roadmap• HL-2A upgrade – Magnetic confinement
(under construction)• EAST – Magnetic confinement (exists)• SG-II, SG-III (Inertial confinement)• ITER – magnetic confinement – under construction• China's Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR)
– magnetic confinement as “next step” • DEMO - planned
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 54
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 55
Energy Policy in China
• 12th Five-year Plan on Greenhouse Emission Control (guofa [2011] No. 41)
H. R. 15253 (93rd): A bill to authorize increased appropriations for the development of thermonuclear fusion power…Sponsor: Rep. Steele [R-CT2]. Not enacted
Increases appropriations for fiscal years 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978 for the development of thermonuclear fusion power by the Atomic Energy Commission
H.R. 17538 (93rd): Fusion Energy Act (introduced Nov 26th, 1974 by Rep. Hanna (D-CA34)). Not enacted
Fusion Energy Act - Expresses the findings of Congress that the general welfare of the United States would be enhanced through the development of various applications of controlled fusion energy, commonly known as thermonuclear energy.
Increased energy production from nuclear power is neededto solve world energy problems, along with renewables
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 67
•Fission Energy is Good! No Carbon emissions!
•US Government and private sector heavily involved in nuclear fission energy
•Policies:•safety and environmental regulations• R&D funding•national energy goals
•Since lat e1990s, govmnt committed to nuclear energy in policies…but
Disposal and storage of high-level nuclear waste major unresolved issue
Public opinion, has improved, but still wary of nuclear
January 14, 2014 MIT PSFC IAP Seminar Series 68
•A policy is a principle or protocol to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes*
•Energy policy addresses energy issues •Research and development•Production•Distribution •Consumption
•The attributes of such policy •legislation (federal/state)•international treaties• incentives to investment• guidelines for use/taxation•other public policy techniques…