Research on Economics and CO₂ Emission of Magnetic and Inertial Fusion Reactors

Abstract

An economical and environment-friendly fusion reactor system is needed for the realization of attractive power plants. Comparative system studies have been done for magnetic fusion energy (MFE) reactors, and been extended to include inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactors by Physics Engineering Cost (PEC) system code. In this study, we have evaluated both tokamak reactor (TR) and IFE reactor (IR). We clarify new scaling formulas for cost of electricity (COE) and CO₂ emission rate with respect to key design parameters. By the scaling formulas, it is clarified that the plant availability and operation year dependences are especially dominant for COE. On the other hand, the parameter dependences of CO₂ emission rate is rather weak than that of COE. This is because CO₂ emission percentage from manufacturing the fusion island is lower than COE percentage from that. Furthermore, the parameters dependences for IR are rather weak than those for TR. Because the CO₂ emission rate from manufacturing the laser system to be exchanged is very large in comparison with CO₂ emission rate from TR blanket exchanges.