Feasibility study for an inductively operated day-long tokamak reactor

A pulsed tokamak fusion power plant with only inductive current drive but with steady electric power output is described. The tokamak plasma performance is determined on the basis of the ITER database assuming the power law of the energy confinement time with an enhancement factor of 1.72 and a Troyon factor of 2.7. The divertor heat flux and temperature are manageable. The major and minor radii of the tokamak plasma are 10 and 1.87 m. The maximum field of the toroidal coils is 12 T (8.08 T at the plasma centre) and the plasma current is 13.9 MA. The operation time and the dwell time of the tokamak are taken to be 13 h and 300 s, respectively. Thermal power input to the turbine generator during the dwell time of the tokamak discharge is supplied by burning the hydrogen gas which is produced by an electrolysis cell throughout the power plant operation. The net electric output power is 1026 MW and the plant efficiency is 31%. The circulation power in the power plant, that is, the input power of the electrolysis cell necessary for producing a sufficient amount of hydrogen gas, is 32.4 MW. The power consumed in auxiliary systems is assumed to be 80 MW. The reactor is operated about 104 times during the assumed lifetime of 30 years. (author). 12 refs, 2 figs, 1 tab