Four near-term and advanced fusion power plants: systems analysis; economics; prime safety and environmental characteristics

The European Power Plant Conceptual Study (PPCS) is a study of conceptual designs for commercial fusion power plants. It has focussed on four power plant models. These span a range from relatively near-term, based on limited technology and plasma physics extrapolations, to advanced. This paper is about the systems code analyses performed to specify the parameters of the models, the economic performance of the models, and their prime safety and environmental characteristics. All four models differ substantially in plasma physics, net electrical output, and divertor technology from the models that formed the basis of earlier European safety and environmental studies. The four models also differ substantially from one another in their size, fusion power and materials compositions, and these differences lead to differences in economic performance and in the details of safety and environmental impact. The results presented here suggest that economically acceptable first generation power plants with major safety and environmental advantages can be accessed by a "fast track" route of fusion development, through ITER without major materials advances, and that there is potential for a more advanced second generation of power plants.