Drivers for Economical Fusion Technologies Workshop
ARPA-E hosted a workshop entitled “Drivers for Economical Fusion Technologies” on October 29-30, 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. The primary objective of the workshop was to identify innovative approaches in high-efficiency, low-cost drivers to enable new approaches in fusion energy. ARPA-E is interested in driver technologies and associated fusion approaches that will significantly reduce the “cost of entry” into fusion R&D and offer a path to economical fusion power. The outcomes from this workshop will help ARPA-E assess the opportunities for a potential program in this area.
Targeted outcomes include:
- Identify and explore promising approaches/opportunities for fusion energy, understand their driver requirements (pressure, energy, flux, limitations on pulse width, etc.) and the associated challenges;
- Identify and explore promising approaches to low cost drivers (e.g., ion or macron accelerators, plasma guns, masers/lasers, pulse power, table-top/MEMS accelerators, or others) and assess applicability of new driver technologies to various regions of fusion parameter space;
- Assess current state of understanding for proposed fusion approaches across the range of fusion parameter space, and the needs for modeling or experimental validation to address key challenges;
- Understand challenges in development and demonstration of driver technologies for the requirements of fusion power; and
- Propose appropriate performance metrics to govern a potential Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in this area.
View the full agenda (pdf).
Proceedings from the meeting are summarized below:
Day 1 - Tuesday, October 29
Welcome and Introduction to ARPA-E
Eric Rohlfing (ARPA-E)
Pat McGrath (ARPA-E)
Presentations: Overview of Fusion Parameter Space and The Parameter Space of Magnetized Targets
Speakers, Richard Siemon and Irvin Lindemuth (University of Nevada, Reno)
Presentation: MagLIF and Prospects for a Breakeven Experiment
Speaker, Dan Sinars (Sandia)
Presentation: Liquid Liner Implosions
Speaker, Peter Turchi (Santa Fe, NM)
Presentation: Plasma Liners and Potential for Standoff Fusion Reactor
Speaker,Scott Hsu (LANL)
Presentation: Formation of Plasma Targets Using Compact Toroids
Speaker, John Slough (University of Washington)
Presentation: Alternatives to CT Merging for Forming/Magnetizing a Plasma Target
Speaker, Dale Welch (Voss Scientific, Inc.)
Breakout 1: New Opportunities to Reach Scientific Breakeven
Breakout 1: Report Back
Breakout 2: Path to Economical Fusion Power Part I:
Promising regimes in fusion parameter space, reactor concepts, and development needs
Day 2 - Wednesday, October 30
Day 1 Review/Report Backs and Day 2 Introduction
Pat McGrath, ARPA-E
Presentation: Pulse Power Drivers
Speaker, Mike Cuneo (Sandia)
Presentation: Rail Guns as a Fusion Driver - Requirements and Challenges
Speaker, Francis Thio (US Department of Energy)
Presentation: Plasma Gun Driver
Speaker, Doug Witherspoon (Hyper V)
Presentation: MEMS Accelerator
Speaker, Amit Lal (Cornell University)
Presentation: Laser Acceleration of Ions
Speaker, Wim Leemans (LBNL)
Presentation: Small Devices for Fusion Research
Speaker,Seth Putterman (UCLA)
Breakout: Path to Economical Fusion Power Part II
Driver and target development for new reactor concepts
Introduction to Final Exercise
Pat McGrath, ARPA-E
Final Exercise (small groups)
*Addendum: Selected fusion parameter space plots at 8 keV and 10 keV for spherical and cylindrical geometries