Power Balance and Cost Estimate of a Semicatalyzed-Deuterium Hybrid with A D-³He Satellite

We investigated the power capabilities and the economic performance of a semicatalyzed-deuterium hybrid reactor with a fissionable blanket fueling a D-3He field-reversed mirror satellite. The hybrid reactor consists of five cells each producing 15-MW fusion power by a total injection of 29 MW of 160-keV deuterium. With a blanket multiplication of four, it supplies a net electric output power of 61 MW, corresponding to an economic figure-of-merit (FOM) of roughly 1800 dollar/kW(electric), which compares favorably with conventional fission reactors. The D-3He satellite is a single-cell reactor of 1 0-MW net electric power, showing a rather high economic FOM of ∼4300 dollar/kW(electric), giving an average economic FOM of ∼2200 dollar/kW(electric) for the combined system.