Lowering the reactor breakeven requirements for proton-Boron 11 fusion

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how to lower the plasma density and confinement time requirements for proton-Boron 11 fusion power plants, showing that technological improvements can make aneutronic fusion more feasible within existing reactor design parameters.

Contribution

It extends power balance analysis to identify conditions for breakeven in pB11 fusion, demonstrating that advanced technologies can significantly reduce Lawson product requirements.

Findings

High-efficiency engines can lower Lawson product to 1.2e15 cm^-3s.

Potential improvements could reduce Lawson requirement by an order of magnitude.

Aneutronic fusion could meet ITER-like parameters with technological advancements.

Abstract

Recently, it has been shown that altering the natural collisional power flow of the proton-Boron 11 (pB11) fusion reaction can significantly reduce the Lawson product of ion density and confinement time required to achieve ignition. However, these products are still onerous - on the order of $7 \times 10^{15}$ cm$^{-3}$s under the most optimistic scenarios. Fortunately, a breakeven fusion power plant does not require an igniting plasma, but rather a reactor that produces more electrical power than it consumes. Here, we extend the existing 0D power balance analysis to check the conditions on power plant breakeven. We find that even for the base thermonuclear reaction, modern high-efficiency thermal engines should reduce the Lawson product to $1.2 \times 10^{15}$ cm$^{-3}$s. We then explore the impact of several potential improvements, including fast proton heating, alpha power capture, direct conversion, and efficient heating. We find that such improvements could reduce the required Lawson product by a further order of magnitude, bringing aneutronic fusion to within target ITER design parameters.