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

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.