ABSTRACT

Necessity is the mother of invention. Energy crises is the cry of future

The conventional sources of energy, the single most important pre-requisite for power generation are depleting fast. The world is heading towards a global energy crisis mostly from running out of these energy sources, decreasing the dependency on fossil fuels is recommended. Yet, the sources of energy are infinite. The greatest task of present day is to exploit the non-conventional energy sources for power generation. Of late, many methods have been introduced for this purpose such as fuel cell technology, hydrogen fuel, solar energy, tidal energy and wind energy. But these non-conventional sources do not promise to meet the ever increasing energy demand.

The Nuclear Fusion energy will not only serve as an alternative but will also prove to be the only source of energy in future. The principle of generating power through nuclear fusion is elucidated in this paper. The huge amount of energy which is obtained from fusion reaction is used to generate steam which drives the turbine and the alternator coupled to the turbine generates electricity. The creation and confinement of plasma and the advantages of this reactor is explained in this paper. Fusion research is considered worth pursuing because it promises to be a widely available energy source with essentially unlimited supply and manageable environmental impact. Especially in India, which has the largest population of whom energy demands has to be met; we need a technology that generates large amount of power with minimum input requirements.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Nuclear Fusion Reaction 2. Creation of Plasma. 3. Plasma Confinement.. Tokamak.. 4. Heating of Plasma... 5. Can Nuclear Fusion Plant Explode? ........................ 6. Leakage and containment of Radioactivity 7. Availability of Fuels. 8. Advantages of Fusion...

2 2 3 3 5 7 7 8 9

CONCLUSION 10 REFERANCE... 11

THE NUCLEAR FUSION REACTION

Nuclear Fusion is the energy-producing process which takes place continuously in the sun and stars. In the core of the sun at temperatures of 10-15 million degrees Celsius, Hydrogen is converted to Helium providing enough energy to sustain life on earth.

For energy production on earth, different fusion reactions are involved. The most suitable reaction occurs between the nuclei of the two heavy forms (isotopes) of Hydrogen - Deuterium (D) and Tritium (T).

Most suitable fusion reaction.

CREATION OF PLASMA

At the temperatures required for the D-T fusion reaction - over 100 Million deg. C the fuel has changed its state from gas to PLASMA. In a plasma, the electrons have been separated from the atomic nuclei (usually called the "ions").

from "The Fusion Quest" by T.K.Fowler, ISBN-0801854563

Inertial fusion involves the firing many times per second of high energy particle or laser beams from all directions at tiny solid fuel pellets in a reaction chamber. Material sputtered off the pellet by the high energy beams drives a shock wave towards the pellet centre, raising its temperature and density. This implosion leads to sufficient fusion reactions occurring to overcome the losses, and a large amount of energy is released in a "micro-explosion". The resulting alpha particles, neutrons, and radiation flow radially out towards the reaction chamber walls. These are situated far enough (typically meters) away and built so as to be able to withstand the loads.

PLASMA CONFINEMENT

Since a plasma consists of two types of charged particles, ions (+ve) and electrons (-ve), magnetic fields can be used to isolate the plasma from the vessel walls. In a magnetic field the particles readily spiral along the field lines but diffuse only slowly across them. The most promising magnetic confinement systems are toroidal (ring-shaped) and, of these, the most advanced is the Tokamak.

The Tokamak

Schematic diagram of a Tokamak

In a Tokamak, plasma is heated in a toroidal vessel and confined away from the vessel walls by magnetic fields.

The basic components of the Tokamak's magnetic confinement system are:

The toroidal field which is produced by coils surrounding the vacuum vessel.

The poloidal field produced by a current in the plasma; the plasma current is induced by transformer action.

Toroidal and poloidal fields of a Tokamak

The idea of using these reactions is that if the products of the reaction can be made to slow down in the fusing medium, they can be used to help maintain the reaction temperature, and if neutrons are produced they can escape the medium to heat up the surrounding materials, and their coolants then used at high temperature to generate electricity using a conventional steam or gas turbine.

The energy released is partitioned among the reaction products inversely with their mass, and they carry it away as kinetic energy. The reactions are difficult to achieve, because the nuclei have a positive electrical charge and therefore strongly repel each other. This can be overcome if their kinetic energy is large enough to bring them close enough that the (attractive) strong nuclear force pulls the nuclei together.

HEATING OF PLASMA

One such method is neutral injection heating. Fuel atoms are accelerated as ions, neutralised by collisions with a gas, then cross the magnetic field, where they are ionized by the plasma and trapped by the magnetic field. They then slow down, transferring their energy to the plasma by collisions (mainly with electrons if the beam particle energy is high enough), thus heating it.

Another method is radio frequency heating, which introduces electromagnetic waves into the plasma. If an electromagnetic wave interacts with particles of various velocities, some will be travelling slower than the wave, and some faster. Usually more particles exist travelling a bit slower than the wave than a bit faster, so electromagnetic waves will preferentially experience drag and be damped by the plasma. This collision less (or Landau) damping, transfers energy between the waves and the plasma particles. The energy is delivered to the plasma by antennas or wave guides at the plasma edge. The frequencies are tuned so that the energy is absorbed in the appropriate region of the plasma and by the appropriate particles. The plasma has essentially three main "resonant" frequencies where heating is most effective - at the electron and ion cyclotron frequencies, and at the lower hybrid frequency. The first two are the frequencies at which the ions and electrons orbit the magnetic field lines as they spiral round the torus. Waves at the lower hybrid frequency propagate well in plasma which has electric fields and magnetic fields perpendicular, typical of the plasma edge.

Both these additional heating systems (beams and radio frequency) can be arranged to also impart momentum preferentially to the electrons relative to the 6

ions.

CAN NUCLEAR FUSION PLANT EXPLODE?

The amount of fuel in the plasma at any time is about 1 gramme enough for a few seconds' reactions. The reaction process itself is a fine balance of making an ultra-high vacuum, injecting only fuel into it, driving adequate currents within it and in surrounding coils to contain it, and reaching sufficient density to be able to heat it enough to raise fusion power to peak levels. If anything goes wrong in any of these processes, the plasma hits the surrounding material walls, and the resulting flood of impurities extinguishes the plasma. That is the challenge of fusion. There can be local problems with all the energy concentrating on certain surfaces, causing melting and damaging the investment, but there is no nucleardriven thermal runaway possible.

Certain accidents can release water coolant into the reaction chamber. If there are hot surfaces nearby these can dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen, and explosive mixtures can result if care is not taken. Again, the energies are enough to damage the investment, but not to cause sufficient damage to affect the general public. The plant is designed with various lines of defense to avoid the possibility of contamination outside the plant in the case of such hypothetical accidents.

LEAKAGE AND CONTAINMENT OF RADIOACTIVITY

Analyses show that under normal operation the extra annual dose to the most exposed individual is about 1% more than that of natural background 7

radiation.

The DT fusion reaction creates helium, which is inert and harmless, and neutrons, which can make surrounding materials radioactive for varying amounts of time. Should these barriers fail, the plant is equipped with a ventilation system with detritiation systems, able over time to clean the atmospheres

The first line of defense is the tokamak vacuum vessel itself which has to be leak free in order to provide a sufficiently clean plasma to produce fusion.

Extensive safety analyses have been carried out and show that even under even hypothetically possible accident conditions there will be no need for evacuation of any of the population around the site.

After 100 years of post-operation radioactive decay, nuclear fusion reactor will be left with about 6000t of waste. When packaged, that is equivalent to a cube with about 10 m edges.

Nuclear fusion reactor waste is less biologically active than coal power station waste 100 years after operation

AVAILABILITY OF FUELS

Deuterium is abundant as it can be extracted from all forms of water. If all the world's electricity were to be provided by fusion power stations, Deuterium supplies

would last for millions of years.

Tritium does not occur naturally and will be manufactured from Lithium within the

machine.

Lithium, the lightest metal, is plentiful in the earth's crust. If all the world's electricity were to be provided by fusion, known reserves would last for at least 1000 years.

Once the reaction is established, even though it occurs between Deuterium and Tritium, the consumables are Deuterium and Lithium.

ADVANTAGES OF FUSION

A vast, new source of energy. Fuels are plentiful. Inherently safe since any malfunction results in a rapid shutdown. No atmospheric pollution leading to acid rain or "greenhouse" effect. Radioactivity of the reactor structure, caused by the neutrons, decays rapidly and can be minimized by careful selection of low-activation materials.

Provision for geological time-span disposal is not needed.

CONCLUSION

The demand for energy is infinite. To meet the ever increasing demand new energy technologies that are promising are essential. Especially in India, which has the largest population of whom energy demands has to met, we need a

technology that generates large amount of power with minimum input requirements.

The concept of Fusion power promises to meet all the energy demand of our country, and a country like India that is racing towards future at rapid rate, this technology is not a big deal. Especially in the ongoing era where the world is focusing on reducing environmental pollution, the fusion power being pollution less could proof to be the only alternative to replacement for fossil fuels and to meet the world energy demand.

Hence the study and advancement of the field of Nuclear Fusion power is worth pursuing to make the world not just a better but a safer place to live.

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Reference:

The Fusion Quest by T.K.Fowler www.ITER.org

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