Soonest/Smallest Possible ARC | |
---|---|
Device type | Tokamak |
Location | Devens, Massachusetts, United States |
Affiliation | Commonwealth Fusion Systems MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center |
Technical specifications | |
Major radius | 1.85 m |
Minor radius | 0.57 m |
Plasma volume | 20 m3 |
Magnetic field | 12.2 T |
Heating power | 25 MW |
Fusion power | (140 MW ) |
Discharge duration | (10 s ) |
Plasma current | (8.7 MA ) |
Plasma temperature | (80×106 K ) |
History | |
Date(s) of construction | 2021–2025 |
Year(s) of operation | 2025 (projected; first plasma) |
SPARC is a tokamak under development by Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). [1] Funding has come from Eni, [2] Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Temasek, Equinor, Devonshire Investors, and others. [3] [4] [5]
SPARC plans to verify the technology and physics required to build a power plant based on the ARC fusion power plant concept. [6] SPARC is designed to achieve this with margin in excess of breakeven and may be capable of achieving up to 140 MW of fusion power for 10 second bursts despite its relatively compact size. [2] [6]
The project is on schedule for operation in 2025 [7] [8] after completing a magnet test in 2021. [9] [10]
The SPARC project was announced in 2018 with a planned completion in 2025. [7] The name was chosen as an abbreviation of "Smallest Possible ARC." [11] In March 2021, CFS announced that it planned to build SPARC at its campus in Devens, Massachusetts. [12]
In September 2021 the project successfully tested a prototype high-field coil, achieving a record for high-temperature superconducting magnets, with a field strength of 20 T at the temperature of 20 K. [13]
SPARC uses yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) high-temperature superconducting magnets that retain superconductivity at temperatures as high as 77 K (optimally at 10 K). [14] The resulting plasmas are expected to generate at least twice as much energy as is required to sustain themselves at high temperatures (200 million K), [15] giving a fusion gain Q > 2, with an expected Q ≈ 11. [6]
A tokamak is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. As of 2016, it was the leading candidate for a practical fusion reactor. The word "tokamak" is derived from a Russian acronym meaning "toroidal chamber with magnetic coils".
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. It is known for the development of the stellarator and tokamak designs, along with numerous fundamental advances in plasma physics and the exploration of many other plasma confinement concepts.
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2024, no device has reached net power.
This timeline of nuclear fusion is an incomplete chronological summary of significant events in the study and use of nuclear fusion.
The T-15 is a Russian nuclear fusion research reactor located at the Kurchatov Institute, which is based on the (Soviet-invented) tokamak design. It was the first industrial prototype fusion reactor to use superconducting magnets to control the plasma. These enormous superconducting magnets confined the plasma the reactor produced, but failed to sustain it for more than just a few seconds. Despite not being immediately applicable, this new technological advancement proved to the USSR that they were on the right path. In the original shape, a toroidal chamber design, it had a major radius of 2.43 m and minor radius 0.7 m.
Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusion research, along with inertial confinement fusion.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), internal designation HT-7U, is an experimental superconducting tokamak magnetic fusion energy reactor in Hefei, China. The Hefei Institutes of Physical Science is conducting the experiment for the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has operated since 2006.
The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) is a magnetic fusion device based on the spherical tokamak concept. It was constructed by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in collaboration with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Columbia University, and the University of Washington at Seattle. It entered service in 1999. In 2012 it was shut down as part of an upgrade program and became NSTX-U, for Upgrade.
The Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a university research center for the study of plasmas, fusion science and technology.
The KSTAR is a magnetic fusion device at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy in Daejeon, South Korea. It is intended to study aspects of magnetic fusion energy that will be pertinent to the ITER fusion project as part of that country's contribution to the ITER effort. The project was approved in 1995, but construction was delayed by the East Asian financial crisis, which weakened the South Korean economy considerably; however, the project's construction phase was completed on September 14, 2007. The first plasma was achieved in June 2008.
The beta of a plasma, symbolized by β, is the ratio of the plasma pressure (p = nkBT) to the magnetic pressure (pmag = B²/2μ0). The term is commonly used in studies of the Sun and Earth's magnetic field, and in the field of fusion power designs.
SST-1 is a plasma confinement experimental device in the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), an autonomous research institute under Department of Atomic Energy, India. It belongs to a new generation of tokamaks with the major objective being steady state operation of an advanced configuration plasma. It has been designed as a medium-sized tokamak with superconducting magnets.
The Lockheed Martin Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR) was a fusion power project at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Its high-beta configuration, which implies that the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure is greater than or equal to 1, allows a compact design and expedited development. The project was active between 2010 and 2019, after that date there have been no updates and it appears the division has shut down.
The ARC fusion reactor is a design for a compact fusion reactor developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). ARC aims to achieve an engineering breakeven of three. The key technical innovation is to use high-temperature superconducting magnets in place of ITER's low-temperature superconducting magnets. The proposed device would be about half the diameter of the ITER reactor and cheaper to build.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is an American fusion power company founded in 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts after a spin-out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its stated goal is to build a small fusion power plant based on the ARC tokamak design. It has participated in the United States Department of Energy’s INFUSE public-private knowledge innovation scheme, with several national labs and universities.
Tokamak Energy is a fusion power company based near Oxford in the United Kingdom, established in 2009. The company is pursuing the global deployment of commercial fusion energy in the 2030s through the combined development of spherical tokamaks with high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. It is also developing HTS magnet technology for other applications.
Ambrogio Fasoli is a researcher and professor working in the field of fusion and plasma physics. A Fellow of the American Physical Society, he is Director of the Swiss Plasma Center, located at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. Since 1 January 2019, he chairs the European consortium EUROfusion, the umbrella organisation for the development of nuclear fusion power in Europe.
The history of nuclear fusion began early in the 20th century as an inquiry into how stars powered themselves and expanded to incorporate a broad inquiry into the nature of matter and energy, as potential applications expanded to include warfare, energy production and rocket propulsion.
In plasma physics, a burning plasma is one in which most of the heating comes from fusion reactions involving thermal plasma ions. The Sun and similar stars are a burning plasma, and in 2020 the National Ignition Facility achieved burning plasma. A closely related concept is that of an ignited plasma, in which all of the heating comes from fusion reactions.