Abstract:
The next two decades are very critical for nuclear energy development. The commercial fast reactor may be in use around 2035; it is also possible that magnetically confined fusion, laser fusion and z-pinch fusion will be demonstrated at that time. A fusion demonstration reactor can be a pure fusion or a fusion-fission hybrid. The latter can lower the fusion power and mitigate the radiation damage of high energy neutrons to materials. On the other hand, the supply of deuterium and tritium as fuel for fusion can only last a few hundred years. We describe here a hybrid for pure energy use which can make full use of uranium and is proliferation resistant, as no separation of uranium and plutonium is needed in post-processing. The union of fission, fusion, and a pure energy hybrid can contribute to the large scale use of nuclear energy in the near future, and supply mankind for more than a thousand years.