ALPHA: Faster and Cheaper Fusion Development …...See the archived Funding Opportunity Announcement...
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ALPHA: Faster and Cheaper Fusion Development Year 2 Annual Meeting Patrick McGrath, Program Director Ryan Umstattd, Commercialization Advisor
Transcript of ALPHA: Faster and Cheaper Fusion Development …...See the archived Funding Opportunity Announcement...
ALPHA: Faster and Cheaper Fusion Development
Year 2 Annual Meeting
Patrick McGrath, Program DirectorRyan Umstattd, Commercialization Advisor
What are we doing here?
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0
5000
10000
15000
20000
ITER NIF Typical ARPA-Eprogram
Cos
t ($M
M)
What are we doing here?
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0
5000
10000
15000
20000
ITER NIF Typical ARPA-Eprogram
Cos
t ($M
M)
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101520253035
Typical ARPA-E Program
~$30MM,7-15 projects
Cos
t ($M
M)
3Source: Cardozo et al., J. Fusion Energy, 2016
What are we doing here?
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0
5000
10000
15000
20000
ITER NIF Typical ARPA-Eprogram
Cos
t ($M
M)
05
101520253035
Typical ARPA-E Program
~$30MM,7-15 projects
Cos
t ($M
M)
Reminder: Fusion is hard
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Tritium
DeuteriumHelium (3.5 MeV)
Neutron (14.1 MeV)
Reminder: Fusion is hard
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Tritium
DeuteriumHelium (3.5 MeV)
Neutron (14.1 MeV)
Reminder: Fusion is hard
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Tritium
DeuteriumHelium (3.5 MeV)
Neutron (14.1 MeV)
Reminder: Fusion is hard
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Tritium
DeuteriumHelium (3.5 MeV)
Neutron (14.1 MeV)
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Fusion Approaches Fu
sion
Cor
e ($
BB
)
ni = ion density (#/cm3)
ITER
NIF
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Fusion Approaches Fu
sion
Cor
e ($
BB
)
ni = ion density (#/cm3)
ITER
NIF
Magnetized targetSlower implosionLower min. power
Higher BSmaller size
Lower min. energy
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More Fusion Approaches! Fu
sion
Cor
e ($
BB
)
ni = ion density (#/cm3)
ITER
NIF
MagLIF
Magnetized targetSlower implosionLower min. power
Higher BSmaller size
Lower min. energy
pulsed magnet
liquid liner
plasma liner
stabilized Z-pinch
ALPHA program goals
Intermediate density:– Seeking approaches for 1018-1023 cm-1 (at full compression)
Rapid progress: high shot rate– Projects required to perform hundreds of shots in 3-year program– Long term goal: Pulsed reactors with repetition rate ≥ 1 Hz
Low cost per shot:– Long term goal: Low cost drivers (< $0.05/MJ) and targets (< 0.05 ¢/MJ)
More options:– Nine teams selected – $30M (total) over 3 years– Diverse set of approaches across intermediate density regime(s)
12See the archived Funding Opportunity Announcement for ALPHA, No. DE-FOA-0001184, at arpa-e-foa.energy.gov for rationale and references
ALPHA portfolio of teams and approaches
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NumerEx “Plasma rope” for stable
plasma target.
Pulsed magnetic
compression
Underlying science and
scaling of MIF
Stabilized Z-pinch(direct pulsed power)
Staged Z-pinch(direct pulsed power)
Piston-driven liquid liner implosion
Underlying science of MIF at fusion conditions
Plasma jets for high velocity
liner implosion
Scalable MEMS-based accelerator for plasma heating
Revisiting the ALPHA Kick-off: Challenges to Capitalizing on the Opportunity
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‣ Limitless, clean, safe electricity production is good…but not sufficient– Must achieve competitive levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)
Source: EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2015, Apr 2015, DOE/EIA-0383(2015), Table 1
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
30.0
LCO
E (¢
/ kW
h)
Operations & MaintenanceCapital & Transmission
‣ Other factors:– Land area requirements– Transmission investments– Environmental compatibility – Favorable scalability
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http://insights.i-runway.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLandingPage/a/4977/p/p-002d/t/page/fm/5
From Year 1: Fusion Intellectual Property Landscape
‣ ARPA-E commissioned a U.S. IP landscape study in Fall 2015– Fusion taxonomy / classification approach courtesy of Scott Hsu
‣ iRunway expanded to a global landscape released Summer of 2016– Principal findings:
• Given magnetic and inertial confinement approaches dominate the IP landscape, magneto-inertial fusion is an area ripe for the creation of new IP
• U.S. holds 2,000 IP assets while Japan, China and Germany combined total 1,400 IP assets
• More than half of the fusion energy IP assets have expired, primarily due to non-payment of fees
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318215383_Conceptual_Cost_Study_for_a_Fusion_Power_Plant_Based_on_Four_Technologies_from_the_DOE_ARPA-E_ALPHA_Program
From Year 2: Fusion Power Plant Conceptual Cost Study
‣ Bechtel National, Woodruff Scientific, and Decysive Systems performed an initial capital cost study of 4 distinct fusion core approaches based upon a common 150 MWe balance of plant
‣ Key takeaways:– Fusion core is significant, but not predominant, cost– Uncertainty in neutronics and tritium systems remains high,
but impact on plant cost is modest– Cost of pulsed power systems matters – Economics likely dictated by scale and balance of plant
components
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Goals for meeting
Technical updates– ALPHA teams (Day 1)– Other private fusion companies (Day 2)
How can we stage-gate fusion development?– Day 1 breakout – common metrics for benchmarking– What can and should ARPA-E do next?
Helping companies succeed…– …in the short term (Day 2 discussion on launching companies)– …and long term (Day 2 breakout on public-private partnership)
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