Engineering Limitations of Fusion Power Plants

Abstract

If conditions for a net power-producing thermonuclear reaction are ever demonstrated, difficult engineering problems must still be overcome. Two such obstacles to any practical application of fusion power are the magnitude of the plant capital cost and the limited lifetime of the reactor vessel. Among the factors contributing to the high initial cost is the constraint heat removal places on reactor size. This results from a fundamental engineering disadvantage of the fusion concept. The problem of limited reactor vessel operating life is inherent in the use of thermonuclear reactions, such as deuterium-tritium, which release damaging energetic neutrons.