Tritium supply assessment for ITER and DEMOnstration power plant

Abstract

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and next generation DEMOnstration fusion reactor need amounts of tritium for test/initial startup and will consume kilograms tritium for operation per year. The available supply of tritium for fusion reactor is man-made sources. Now most of commercial tritium resource is extracted from moderator and coolant of CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) type Heavy Water Reactor (HWR), in the Ontario Hydro Darlington facility of Canada and Wolsong facility of Korea. In this study, the tritium production rate in CANDU reactor was simulated and estimated. And other possible routes, including Accelerator Production of Tritium (APT), tritium production in Commercial Light Water Reactor (CLWR) and Accelerator Driven Subcritical system (ADS), were also evaluated in feasibility and economy. Based on the tritium requirement investigated according to ITER test schedule and startup inventory required for a FDS-II-scale DEMO calculated by TAS1.0, the assessment results showed that after ITER retired in 2038, the tritium inventory of CANDU reactor could not afford DEMO reactor startup without extra resource.