Lecture

Heating and Burning Plasmas: ITER and Fusion Power Plant

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In course

PHYS-424: Plasma II

This course completes the knowledge in plasma physics that students have acquired in the previous two courses, with a discussion of different applications, in the fields of magnetic confinement and controlled fusion, astrophysical and space plasmas, and so ...

Description

This lecture covers the concepts of heating and burning plasmas, focusing on the ITER project and the route to a fusion power plant. Topics include minimum heating power, ohmic heating, neutral beam injection, and heating by electromagnetic waves. It also discusses the challenges and advantages of different heating methods, such as neutral beam heating, ion cyclotron resonance heating, lower hybrid heating, and electron cyclotron heating. The lecture delves into the design goals of ITER, the concept of a burning plasma, and the importance of tritium in fusion reactors. It concludes with an overview of the DEMO project and the future roadmap towards achieving fusion energy.

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Instructor

Holger Reimerdes

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Martim Zurita, Marta Pedrini, Benjamin Yong Kwak Brown, Pierre Louis Sintre, Massimo Carpita, Richard Alexander David Ducker, Giuseppe Iunior Drago Past EPFL PhD Students Mirko Wensing, Claudia Colandrea, Guang-Yu Sun Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Gustavo Paganini Canal, Joyeeta Sinha, Roberto Maurizio Courses Control and Operation of Tokamaks PHYS-748 This course treats the main issues in operation and control of a tokamak. Control-oriented models are de

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Physics

Plasma physics: Fusion power

Related concepts (32)

Fusion power

Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2023, no device has reached net power. Fusion processes require fuel and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time to create a plasma in which fusion can occur.

Plasma (physics)

Plasma () is one of four fundamental states of matter, characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in any combination of ions or electrons. It is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe, being mostly associated with stars, including the Sun. Extending to the rarefied intracluster medium and possibly to intergalactic regions, plasma can be artificially generated by heating a neutral gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field.

Magnetic confinement fusion

Magnetic confinement fusion is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of fusion energy research, along with inertial confinement fusion. The magnetic approach began in the 1940s and absorbed the majority of subsequent development. Fusion reactions combine light atomic nuclei such as hydrogen to form heavier ones such as helium, producing energy.

Nuclear fusion–fission hybrid

Hybrid nuclear fusion–fission (hybrid nuclear power) is a proposed means of generating power by use of a combination of nuclear fusion and fission processes. The basic idea is to use high-energy fast neutrons from a fusion reactor to trigger fission in non-fissile fuels like U-238 or Th-232. Each neutron can trigger several fission events, multiplying the energy released by each fusion reaction hundreds of times. As the fission fuel is not fissile, there is no self-sustaining chain reaction from fission.

Burning plasma

In plasma physics, a burning plasma is one in which most of the heating comes from fusion reactions involving thermal plasma ions. The Sun and similar stars are a burning plasma, and in 2020 the National Ignition Facility achieved burning plasma. A closely related concept is that of an ignited plasma, in which all of the heating comes from fusion reactions. Sun In the Sun and other similar stars, those fusion reactions involve hydrogen ions.

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