Mid Century Carbon Free Sustainable Energy Development Based on Fusion Breeding

Fusion has often been billed as the ultimate 21st century sustainable energy source. However, not only is the pace of the program glacially slow, it seems to recede further and further into the future. For instance, when the ITER Tokamak was approved in 2005, the date for the first plasma was 2016. As this is written in 2018, the date has moved back to 2025. It has receded nearly one year for every calendar year! Furthermore, even if ITER is successful, there are many, many fundamental obstacles between it and a commercial, sustainable pure fusion reactor. This paper shows that fusion breeding is a better way, one that could lead to substantial fusion power not too long after midcentury. The reason is that the requirements for a fusion breeder reactor are much relaxed from those of a pure fusion reactor. Fusion breeding is the use of fusion neutrons both to boil water and to breed nuclear fuel for thermal nuclear reactors. Pure fusion is only the former. Fusion breeding’s transition to a power source for the economy could follow rapidly a success by ITER, the National Ignition Facility or both. This paper summarizes years of effort and advocacy for fusion breeding instead of conventional fusion.