An Investigation into the Potential for the Development of a Tritium Production Industry to service Fusion Power Plants

聚变行业目前的观点是，每个聚变发电厂(FPP)都应该培育自己的氚。实现这一目标的首选方法是在含有锂的育种毯子中，锂围绕聚变等离子体，并使用聚变等离子体产生的中子从锂中产生氚。然而，这种方法对于聚变电力技术的全球部署是有问题的。它生产更复杂的FPP设计，需要可更换的增殖毯子和复杂的氚处理设施。增殖层不仅增加了FPP设计的复杂性，而且还增加了FPP的危险潜力，并增加了对额外安全、安保和可能的保障问题的需求。电力公用事业和其他行业预计，出于成本和可操作性的原因，场外核电站将尽可能简单，因此，提供类似于核裂变发电厂的核燃料制造行业的氚供应行业将具有许多优势。该项目的目的是调查工业规模生产氚的可行性，这将是支持聚变动力部署所需的，从而使场外核电站不必自己培养氚。英国的长期愿景是创建一个能够满足英国和全球FPP行业需求的氚生产行业。在短期内，人们认识到这一步，英国和国际上的其他小型球形托卡马克反应堆和私人聚变努力将在它们的早期需要氚供应。

The current view of the fusion industry is that each fusion power plant (FPP) should breed its own tritium. The preferred method to achieve this is in breeding blankets containing lithium, which surround the fusion plasma and use the neutrons it produces to generate tritium from lithium. However, this approach is problematic for a global deployment of fusion power technologies. It produces more complex FPP designs with the need for replaceable breeder blankets and complex tritium processing facilities. The breeder blankets not only add complexity to the design of the FPP, but they also increase the hazard potential of the FPP and the need for additional safety, security and possible safeguards issues. The electricity utilities and other industries will expect FPPs to be as simple as possible for both cost and operability reasons, hence the availability of a tritium supply industry, similar to the nuclear fuel manufacturing industry in the case of the nuclear fission power plants, will have many advantages. This project would aim to investigate the feasibility of producing tritium on the industrial scale that would be required to support the deployment of fusion power so that FPPs would not have to breed their own tritium. The longer-term vision is for the UK to create a tritium production industry that could service both the UK and global FPP industry need. In the shorter term it is recognised that STEP, other UK and international small spherical Tokamak reactors and private fusion endeavours will need tritium supplies for their early years.