Demonstration reactor
The step after an experimental reactor: a machine meant to show that fusion can actually generate electricity. It comes just before a commercial plant.
Fusion development is planned in stages: an experimental reactor to settle the physics (ITER, for example), a demonstration reactor to prove power generation, then a commercial plant that pays its way. A demonstration reactor must deliver several hundred megawatts of electricity steadily, breed its own tritium fuel, and keep running while components are replaced by remote handling[1].
In Japan the conceptual design has been led by the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, and the government now aims to bring the demonstration of power generation forward into the 2030s. Many of the technologies involved, including the blanket and structural materials, have yet to be tested in a real fusion environment.
Related terms
- ITERThe world's largest tokamak, an experimental fusion reactor being built in southern France by Japan, Europe, the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and India.
- Breeding blanketThe layer surrounding a fusion reactor's plasma. Neutrons striking lithium in it produce tritium fuel, and their energy is captured as heat.
- Tritium breeding ratioThe number of new tritium atoms a reactor's blanket makes for each tritium atom burned. Unless it exceeds one, the reactor cannot supply its own fuel.