Results, conclusions, and implications of the SEAFP-2 programme

Fusion power stations inherently will have no actinides or fission products, extremely low levels of nuclear energy, and low levels of decay heat power. With appropriate design and material selection, these favourable inherent features could give rise to substantial safety and environmental advantages. Analyses performed within the SEAFP-2 project of the European fusion programme have shown that it should be possible to design commercial fusion power stations so that• ximum doses to the public arising from the most severe conceivable accident driven by in-plant energies would be at the milliSievert level — well below the level at which evacuation would be considered; a few decades, most, perhaps all, of the activated material arising from the operation and decommissioning of the plant could be cleared or recycled, with little, or no, need for repository disposal; ove goals can be achieved by using relatively well-developed and near-term low-activation martensitic steel as structural material. esults supporting these conclusions are summarised in this paper. The detailed lessons learnt will be input to a future European conceptual study of commercial fusion power stations.