The U.S. Stellarator Power Plant Study

The US Stellarator Power Plant Study (SPPS) was carried out by a national reactor study group that also conducts tokamak power plant studies (ARIES, PULSAR). The purpose was to assess the feasibility of a stellarator as a steady-state reactor and to identify critical issues for stellarator reactor design. The same system codes and assumptions (materials and costing approach) used in the tokamak reactor studies were used in this study of a 1-GW(e) stellarator power plant in order to develop a meaningful comparison between tokamak and stellarator reactors. The short time scale allowed for the study and the limited resources only permitted a first look at a stellarator reactor. Nevertheless, this study indicates that the Modular Helias-like Heliac (MHH) chosen for the SPPS could lead to an attractive steady-state reactor that is competitive with the ARIES-IV second-stability tokamak reactor. Options and tradeoffs were studied for a reference MHH case and areas needing further improvement were identified. No fatal flaws were found; solutions were found in all areas, although the design was not really optimized with respect to the magnetic configuration and reactor engineering