A Faster Way to Fusion

Transcription

1 A Faster Way to Fusion 2017 Tokamak Energy Tokamak Energy Ltd Company Overview April 2018

2 Our Mission To deliver to mankind a cheap, safe, secure and practically limitless source of clean energy fusion power

3 Overview of Tokamak Energy Privately funded spin-out from the world leading Culham Centre for Fusion Energy Engineering Centre at Milton Park, Oxfordshire in a cluster of high tech companies World class team of over 45 full time scientists and engineers Collaborations with Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, and Univ of Tokyo Most downloaded paper ever in Nuclear Fusion Journal authored by Tokamak Energy 30 families of patents so far focussed around the use of high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets in spherical tokamaks

4 The Opportunity A future supply of power independent of fossil fuels The largest addressable market on the planet Fusion is: Clean no carbon emissions or long-lived nuclear waste Safe inherent safety with no risk of a meltdown Abundant plentiful fuel (deuterium and tritium bred from lithium) Affordable our work shows that the cost of fusion power can be competitive Investment in fusion has historically been the domain of governments however there is an increasing interest from private investors

5 Fusion in a Tokamak A tokamak is a donut-shaped vessel for creating hot plasma 30 billion invested in tokamaks by governments in last 50 years Method: magnetically trap a hot plasma in a tokamak and fuse hydrogen nuclei. Two tokamaks, TFTR at Princeton and JET at Culham, have produced > 10 MW of fusion power

6 The Challenge Traditional view for fusion power & tokamaks is that bigger is better (ITER) Huge investment and timescales to progress Spherical Tokamaks are much more efficient than traditional doughnut shape tokamaks. This allows for smaller more compact designs But: there are space constraints at the centre of spherical tokamaks conventional (copper / low temperature superconducting) magnets cannot create conditions required to produce fusion energy wide narrow

7 The Tokamak Energy Solution Spherical Tokamaks Squashed shape Highly efficient High Temperature Superconductors High current at high field Fusion Power smaller, cheaper, faster

8 Why We Are Different Privately funded Freedom and flexibility to pursue the best technology Leading expertise in the sector Operating in a well-understood field of physics Building team of world class Scientists &Engineers Rapidly developed: Working prototype devices Know-how & Patents A plan to rapidly deliver a sustainable source of energy to replace fossil fuels

9 Milestones to date ST25: working prototype with copper magnets achieves plasma for three milliseconds. This demonstrates that Tokamak Energy can rapidly build and test working prototypes ST25 (HTS): first tokamak featuring all high temperature superconducting magnets The device achieved continuous plasma for 29 hours a new world record ST40: the worlds first high field spherical tokamak Construction and commissioning is well underway and first plasma achieved in April 2017

10 ST40 build & commissioning ST40: verification of plasma physics in a high field spherical tokamak (pulsed copper magnet) First plasma: April 2017 Science Magazine: BBC:

11 ST40 build & commissioning Trial assembly of Toroidal Field magnets complete Outer Vacuum Chamber construction complete August 2017

12 First phase of testing Jan 2018

13 The Way Forward ST40 Copper Magnets 15 M & 100M degrees Fusion conditions with D-D Energy gain conditions with D-T HTS Magnet Demo Large scale HTS magnet HTS supply chain development Validate magnet design and construction ST-F1 All HTS Magnets Industrial scale heat production Could be used for electricity generation ST-E1 Electricity production (to the grid) Final size and parameters to be determined Testing underway Design Phase Conceptual design Conceptual design 13

14 Summary Tokamak Energy is the only venture using the HTS-Spherical Tokamak route to fusion power A world class team Widespread endorsement A proven track record of successfully designing, engineering and operating tokamak reactors 2-3 years program to demonstrate critical technical milestones Development of partnerships & supply chain needed to meet requirements and timescales A faster route to fusion power

15 VTT involvement Numerical modelling to optimise NBI system using ASCOT code 3 rd year running VTT

16 Neutral beam injection angle Neutral beams are used to inject heat, fuel, momentum and current in the tokamak plasmas During the ST40 design phase it was asked what kind of beam and what kind of geometry should be chosen Tokamak Energy commissioned a research project from VTT to study the various options and produce the answers VTT

17 ASCOT calculations We found that it is not possible to maximise everything simultaneously Current drive is maxed at high energy to ~0.2MA limiting the non-inductive current to around 10% Maximal torque ~0.5Nm is obtained at low energy NB and could result in fast spinning plasma (reduced turbulence improved confinement) A Salmi et al, Fus. Eng. & Design 117 (2017) 14 VTT

18 Ongoing project First ST40 beam system has now been selected and we continue with ASCOT calculations to predict its performance, beam duct losses and provide input of fast particle content and alpha confinement for TAE studies. VTT

19 Future opportunities Tokamak Energy business: design, engineer and operate tokamak reactors HTS Magnet Demo Large scale HTS magnet HTS supply chain development Validate magnet design and construction - Hardware and services are needed - Power supplies, vacuum components, power banks - Conceptual designs, next step devices - Remote handling - Neutronics - High temperature supra conductors - Large effort at TE and MIT (50M ) on development and patenting HTS magnet and joining technologies - Conventional copper coils - Diagnostics ST-F1 All HTS Magnets Industrial scale heat production Could be used for electricity generation ST-E1 Electricity production (to the grid) Final size and parameters to be determined VTT