Improving the Feasibility of Economical Proton-Boron 11 Fusion via Alpha Channeling with a Hybrid Fast and Thermal Proton Scheme

Abstract

The proton-Boron 11 (p-B11) fusion reaction is much harder to harness for commercial power than the easiest fusion reaction, namely the deuterium and tritium (DT) reaction. The p-B11 reaction requires much higher temperatures, and, even at those higher temperatures, the cross section is much smaller. However, as opposed to tritium, the reactants are both abundant and non-radioactive. It is also an aneutronic reaction, thus avoiding radioactivity-inducing neutrons. Economical fusion can only result, however, if the plasma is nearly ignited; in other words if the fusion power is at least nearly equal to the power lost due to radiation and thermal conduction. Because the required temperatures are so high, ignition is thought barely possible for p-B11, with fusion power exceeding the bremsstrahlung power by only around 3\%. We show that there is a high upside to changing the natural flow of power in the reactor, putting more power into protons, and less into the electrons. This redirection can be done using waves, which tap the alpha particle power and redirect it into protons through alpha channeling. Using a simple power balance model, we show that such channeling could reduce the required energy confinement time for ignition by a factor of 2.6 when energy is channeled into thermal protons, and a factor of 6.9 when channeled into fast protons near the peak of the reactivity. Thus, alpha channeling could dramatically improve the feasibility of economical p-B11 fusion energy.

16 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Progress toward fusion energy breakeven and gain as measured against the Lawson criterion
• Alpha Channeling in a Rotating Plasma
• Wave-Supported Hybrid Fast-Thermal p-${}^{11}$B Fusion
• A novel fusion reactor with chain reactions for proton-boron11
• A study of the requirements of p-11B fusion reactor by tokamak system code

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Wave-Supported Hybrid Fast-Thermal p-${}^{11}$B Fusion
• Suppression of Bremsstrahlung losses from relativistic plasma with energy cutoff
• Sensitivity of synchrotron radiation to the superthermal electron population in mildly relativistic plasma
• On the Upper Bound of Non-Thermal Fusion Reactivity with Fixed Total Energy
• Confinement Time and Ambipolar Potential in a Relativistic Mirror-Confined Plasma
• Advanced fuel fusion, phase space engineering, and structure-preserving geometric algorithms
• Coriolis Forces Modify Magnetostatic Ponderomotive Potentials
• Retrospective of the ARPA-E BETHE-GAMOW-Era Fusion Programs and Project Cohorts