A Portable Nuclear Fusion Powered Generator

M. Paluszek, S.J. Thomas, C. Swanson, S. Cohen
Princeton Fusion Systems,
United States

Keywords: fusion, nuclear fusion, portable power, mobile power, power generation, nuclear

Summary:

he Princeton Field Reversed Configuration (PFRC) reactor is a nuclear fusion reactor that is compact and portable. Machines would range in size from 1 MWe to 10 MWe. They would be fueled by deuterium and helium-3. The reaction produces very few neutrons and those produced are low energy minimizing materials problems. Sufficient helium-3 is available for military applications. The magnetic fields required to confine the plasma in the field reversed configuration are comparable to those in MRI machines. Power is produced by a Brayton cycle with a novel x-ray conversion layer in the cooling channel. PFRC is a driven machine. All reactant heating is done via a wave heating system using a novel high efficiency switching amplifier. LCOE estimates for a 1 MWe portable system are 40 cents/kWh. The simplicity of the design and its size makes rapid development feasible.