Abstract

The European roadmap to the realization of fusion electricity breaks the quest into eight missions. For each mission, it reviews the current status of research, identifies open issues, and proposes a research and development programme. ITER is the key facility on the roadmap as it is expected to achieve most of the important milestones on the path to fusion power. The Fusion Roadmap is tightly connected to the ITER schedule and the vast majority of resources in fusion research are presently dedicated to ITER and its accompanying experiments. Parallel to the ITER exploitation in the 2030s, the construction of the demonstration power plant DEMO needs to be prepared. DEMO will for the first time supply fusion electricity to the grid and it will have a self-sufficient fuel cycle. The design, construction and operation of DEMO require full involvement of industry to ensure that, after a successful DEMO operation, industry can take responsibility for commercial fusion power. The European fusion roadmap provides a coherent path towards the fusion power plant, and it proposes in an integrated way to find solutions for all challenges that still need to be addressed.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Fusion energy using tokamaks: can development be accelerated?’

Highlights

  • There is a general understanding that mankind needs to strongly reduce its reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation

  • The main facilities on the fusion roadmap are (1) ITER which should demonstrate that fusion is feasible, (2) DEMO which will have a selfsufficient fuel cycle and produce for the first time electricity from fusion and (3) International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF)-DONES which is a 14 MeV neutron source needed to test and validate materials for DEMO and the fusion power plants

  • A fusion reactor that is claimed to come into operation before ITER reaches high performance will, miss this input and might not be able to breed its own tritium, but instead use tritium from external sources

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Summary

Introduction

There is a general understanding that mankind needs to strongly reduce its reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation. Even with the best possible storage means and making use of a European super grid the relative contribution of renewables to the electricity mix is estimated to be still limited to a maximum of about 60% [5]. This is in line with the IPCC Special. Nuclear fusion will not be realized by 2050, but it has the potential to significantly contribute to the energy mix in the long term and especially to provide electricity (or heat) in densely populated countries and highly industrialized areas, where land scarcity hampers the utilization of intermittent sources. Fusion Roadmap is broken up into eight missions/challenges which will be briefly described in this paper

The European roadmap to fusion electricity
Developing plasma regimes of operation for ITER and DEMO
Heat exhaust systems
Neutron tolerant materials
Tritium self-sufficiency
Safety and environment
Integrated DEMO design
Cost of electricity
10. Stellarator
Findings
11. Conclusion
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