Page 23 - Fundamentals of Magnetic Thermonuclear Reactor Design

Engineering and Physical Principles of the Magnetic Fusion Chapter | 1 5

way to commercial fusion power. Much attention, of course, should be given to
safety regulations and systems and ensuring the highest operational reliability.
Given the problems associated with the supply and demand for nuclear fuel
and the limited resources of natural uranium, it is worthwhile to use fusion re-
actors as high-power neutron sources to produce fissionable nuclear fuel in the
blanket. In such an energy system, fusion neutron sources can represent a rela-
tively small part. The key strength of such a solution for the fuel cycle problem
is the opportunity to do without the high-activity spent fuel recycling. Radioac-
tivity released in the recycling of spent fuel from a hybrid reactor blanket is at
least two orders of magnitude less than in producing the same quantity of fissile
isotopes during the recycling of fast reactor spent fuel [4–6].
The next chapters look at over half a century of experience in handling these
problems, gained by the fusion community on the way from the T-3 tokamak to
the ITER international experimental reactor, which is now in the construction
phase.

REFERENCES

[1] (Power Еngineering of Russia) (XXI Сentury.
Principles of Development), St. Petersburg Polytechnical University Publishing House,
St. Petersburg, Russia, (2011) 720 pp. (in Russian).
[2] ITER Physics Basis (Ed.). Chapter 1: Overview and Summary, Nuclear Fusion, 39 (12) (1999)
2137–2664 (special issue).
[3] Progress in the ITER Physics Basis. Chapter 9. ITER contributions for DEMO developments.
Nuclear Fusion, 47 (6) (2007) S404 (special issue).
[4] E.P. Velikhov, (The Third Route of the Nuclear Power
Engineering), in: (Science in the World), weekly e-journal of Russian Association
for the Advancement of Science, Moscow, vol. 1 (1) (22 September 2014), pp. 8–11 (in
Russian).
[5] E.P. Velikhov, M.V. Kovalchuk, E.A. Azizov, et al. Thermonuclear neutron source for nuclear
fuel production, At. Energy 114 (3) (2013) 197–202.
[6] S.V. Mirnov, From the pure fusion to fusion–fission DEMO tokamaks, Plasma Phys. Controlled
Fusion 55 (4) (2013) 045003.