Progress on the European Safety and Environmental Assessment of Fusion Power (SEAFP)

Abstract

Abstract The Safety and Environmental Assessment of Fusion Power (SEAFP) project was set up by the European Community Fusion Programme in response to recommendations made by a high level Fusion Programme Evaluation Board. The Evaluation Board stated that fusion potentially possesses “inherent environmental and safety advantages over all current alternatives for base load electricity generation”, but that a “convincing demonstration” of these potential advantages is necessary. SEAFP is undertaken by three main participants: the NET Team, The Euratom/ UKAEA Association, and European industry. Other EC fusion laboratories also participate. The work embraces the outline design of fusion power stations, the safety and environmental assessment of those designs, and interactions between design and assessment to improve the design. The project began in April 1992 and will report in December 1994. In the first year of the project, five candidate blanket concepts were developed in parallel. Other aspects of design were developed as far as possible independently of the blanket designs. Assessments were made of the technical merits of the candidate designs, and scoping calculations were used to provide preliminary assessments of their accident and waste management characteristics. Accident identification studies were used to select the bounding sequences to be analysed later in detail. Targets for safety and environmental performance were developed. This phase of the study culminated, in August 1993, in the selection of two plant models, one based on a water/martensitic steel/lithium-lead blanket, the other based on a helium/vanadium alloy/lithium oxide blanket, to be developed and assessed in more detail. Other design variants will be assessed through sensitivity studies.