Critical Issues of Burning Plasma, Engineering, Economic and Environmental Assessments on Steady-State Fusion Reactors

Abstract

For burning plasma simulation and reactor system analysis on steady-state high beta fusion reactors, TOTAL physics code and PEC engineering code have been developed. From TOTAL analysis, it is clarified that by choosing appropriate external current drive profile, high bootstrap-current fraction is achieved in steady-state. From PEC analysis, it is found that the current drive efficiency should be raised for cost of electricity (COE) and CO2 reductions in rather low-beta reactors. Newly derived scaling formulas on COE and life-cycle CO2 emission rate might contribute to the future reactor design projection.