Training and Upgrading Tokamak Power Plants with Remountable Superconducting Magnets

TL;DR

This paper proposes a strategy for developing tokamak fusion power plants using remountable superconducting magnets, combining robust ductile magnets during commissioning with high-field superconductors for operational efficiency, and provides detailed cost-optimized designs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of using remountable magnets to mitigate brittle superconductor failures and offers detailed, cost-effective tokamak design strategies with potential for commercial scalability.

Findings

A 100 MWe demonstrator tokamak with specific parameters is feasible.

Training magnets can be reused across multiple reactors, reducing costs.

Large-scale tokamaks could be economically competitive with current designs.

Abstract

All high field superconductors producing magnetic fields above 12 T are brittle. Nevertheless, they will probably be the materials of choice in commercial tokamaks because the fusion power density in a tokamak scales as the fourth power of magnetic field. Here we propose using robust, ductile superconductors during the reactor commissioning phase in order to avoid brittle magnet failure while operational safety margins are being established. Here we use the PROCESS systems code to inform development strategy and to provide detailed capital-cost-minimised tokamak power plant designs. We propose building a 'demonstrator' tokamak with an electric power output of 100 MWe, a plasma fusion gain Qplasma = 17, a net gain Qnet = 1.3, a cost of electricity (COE) of \$ 1148 (2021 US) per MWh (at 75 % availability) and high temperature superconducting operational TF magnets producing 5.4 T on-axis and 12.5 T peak-field. It uses Nb-Ti training magnets and will cost about \$ 9.75 Bn (2021 US). An equivalent 500 MWe plant has a COE of \$ 608 per MW suggesting that large tokamaks may eventually dominate the commercial market. We consider a range of designs optimised for capital cost (as the reactors considered are pilot plants) consisting of both 100 MWe and 500 MWe plants with each of two approaches for the magnets: training and upgrading. With training magnets, the plant is cost-optimised for REBCO TF magnets. For a 100 MWe plant, the Nb-Ti training magnets typically produce 70 % peak field on the toroidal field coils compared to REBCO magnets, 65 % peak field on the central solenoid and cost approx. 10 % of the total machine cost. Training magnets could in principle be reused for each of say 10 subsequent (commercial) machines and hence at 1 % bring only marginal additional cost.