Analysis of the requirements for economic magnetic fusion

A generic reactor model is used to examine the economic viability of electricity generation by magnetic fusion. The simple model uses components which are representative of those used in previous reactor studies of deuterium-tritium burning tokamaks, stellarators, bumpy tori, reverse field pinches and tandem mirrors. Conservative costing assumptions are made. The generic reactor is not a tokamak but rather it is intended to emphasize what is common to all magnetic fusion reactors. The reactor uses a superconducting toroidal coil set to produce the dominant magnetic field. To this extent it is a less good approximation to systems, such as the reversed field pinch in which the main field is produced by a plasma current. The main output of the study is the cost of electricity as a function of the weight and size of the fusion core - blanket, shield, structure and coils. The model shows that a 1200 MW/sub e/ power plant with a fusion core weight of about 10,000 tonnes should be competitive in the future with fission and fossil plants. Sensitivity studies of varying the assumptions show that this result is not sensitively dependent on any given assumption. Of particular importance is the result that this scale of fusion reactor may be realized with only moderate advances in physics and technology capabilities. For a fusion-fission hybrid with a high support ratio for fission reactors, the fusion island is not such a critical driver as for electricity production. 19 refs., 5 figs., 3 tabs.