Design studies of innovatively small fusion reactor based on biomass-fusion hybrid concept: GNOME

Conceptual design of an innovatively small tokamak reactor “GNOME” based on a non-fission biomass-fusion hybrid concept is proposed. This fusion plant concept intends to use high-temperature heat from the blanket to generate hydrogen or synthetic fuels out of waste biomass. Since energy multiplication is expected by utilizing chemical energy of biomass, the requirement for the fusion plasma for net plant energy output is reduced to Q ≥ 5. As a result, the GNOME reactor has been designed to produce 320 MW fusion power with a 5.2 m major radius, 3.1 normalized beta and 11 T maximum field. This relatively small maximum field can be achieved by using Nb3Sn superconducting magnets. Besides, this reactor allows 3.0 m diameter space for its center solenoid coil and requires 60 MW of the input power. These features require minimal technical extensions from ITER.