CRA Risk & Safety Forum 2021: 'Fusion Technology and Assystem'

lovely to see you all again um now we're going to move on to talked about fusion regulation and where that's potentially heading well what about the technology itself so today we've got isabel machado an up-and-coming project engineer at isis them and i'll hand you over to isabel straight away thank you so hi everyone i'm isabel and well i've been asked to present a little bit the current fusion projects and the challenge as well as stem and the diversity project so let's get to it so this this slide here is just to give a little perspective of my background and to explain how i end up here representing well fusion and a system as you can probably have guessed by now by my name and that little flag right on the left corner um i'm portuguese i've started my studies in portugal doing a bachelor in mechanical engineer and then i've taken a big decision to go towards energy where i went more specifically to nuclear and i did a double master's in nuclear engineering in barcelona spain and then the second year in nuclear decommissioning and waste management in paris france and to finish that master i had to do an internship and that's where i ended up with a system doing well helping developing um concept design for an innovative hot cell for eta um well that's where fusion comes up and now three years and a half i have passed and i've got the opportunity to work in fusion projects uh in fishing deck commissioning and most recently i've moved to the uk where i'm a project working as a project engineer for fusion projects well the new build the step of course the uk favorite and the decoration strategies that we need to think of for fusion and also on the side developing hydrogen business for the company so as i only have half an hour and i'm not a technical lead with 20 years of experience unfortunately if you do have any technical questions do not hesitate to contact me after the presentation and i will redirect you to one of our nuclear fusion technical leads i hope that's okay so a little bit of a system for those that don't know yet aside is an engineering service provider and we work in various domains such as nuclear renewables hydrogen transportation defense this digital transformation has been the new hot topic and we have been identified as the number two company in the world to work on nuclear engineering so if you are interested in knowing more about us stem just don't hesitate and go to visit our site it's not the topic of today so we're going to go into fusion so today's topic so we go fusion first major projects then how icy stem has been working on fusion and then diversity project within our system so what is fusion and the big question i've heard it's the fusion day today and so fusion is the process that powers our sun and all the other stars in the universe it occurs when the star is first formed from a dense gas cloud where the gravity due to the mass of the gas within the cloud generates enough temperature and pressure for the electrostatic repulsion of atoms to be overcome however this is not an easy thing to recreate and for this reason scientists and engineers all over the world have come together to develop the required technology to recreate this process and achieve a source of sustainable energy and eventually validate the process and the design and the materials to get something that is commercially viable and also economically so why if we look at it it's a lot of problems and why is it such a good thing and why we keep going after it so the reaction that we need to occur that needs to occur but fusion plasma are highly exothermal with this meaning that each reaction releases more energy than the one that is consumed to get the plasma and don't forget that's exactly what we're looking for so it's getting energy out of something without having to spend much so if we look at it i'm sorry i'm gonna go for a little sorry so if we look at it as a recipe i've just moved to the uk apparently sunday roast is a big thing here and we need the exact exact ingredients the right conditions to do it so if i present you a kitchen with no stove no hover over and you won't be able to do it but probably you can with the gas thing camping gas but it would never be the perfect thing safe and good so it's more or less the same situation for fusion where we know the ingredients but we don't yet have the right conditions to make energy in this case we need the combination of hydrogen gases pulterium and tertium these two are heated at very high temperatures to create a plasma and then a few these two atoms fuse and the energy is released forming a heavier helium and atom and nutrient and there we go we have energy we have the ingredients but as i mentioned if we go and look at the kitchen to the structure that can support this reaction that's where we have a problem is that we cannot reproduce the same pressure and temperature as required through gravity so this is where we and as engineers need to get creative and to find a solution and go around the problem the most viable solution found at the moment is through the use of magnetical fields which twist and squeeze the iodine atoms into a plasma however to achieve a sustainable energy we need to be able to produce large amounts of plasma and to do so implies operating at 100 million degrees celsius and that is believe it or not 10 times hotter than the center of the sun which it's incredible to even think that we could reproduce that on earth there are several types of fusion reactors and being studied and for this presentation we'll focus on the magnetic confinement which is the most developed one so i hope and i've heard you already know eta so we all start with the major project that is in construction at the moment which is eaten and it's the international one where everyone is capable or able to work on and so the international thermal nuclear experimental reactor or eta will be the largest document ever built and is a joint global effort to crack fusion and the token mark is a magnetic environment as i said before is the most well developed and well-funded approach to fusion nuclear tacoma is a russian acronym for toroidal magnetic confinement to simplify the donut shape so that's it it's the core of the reactor is a donut where the plasma goes around without touching the walls hopefully so the method involves generating a plasma using a magnetical field generating large amounts of heat which is raised around the taurus of the reactor the reactor is designed to produce 500 megawatts of thermal energy from an input energy of 50 megawatts which means it's the q q value of 10. that's what we want is that we put 50 we get 500 out we're winning that's that's the that's the goal however this machine for the moment will not be connected to a steam generator neither the electrical crate is purely experimental and why is it because it's one of a kind and the goal is yes to produce 500 megawatt of fusion power but to demonstrate and validate the all the operations all the material the design that the design works that the choices have been done work and are if efficient when producing energy so and on the other side on the chemical side physical part of it is to achieve the tremendous rich in plasma and self-breeding where we create the reac the reaction itself creates three zoom that can feed the next reaction so that's it we go a little bit into detail on eta because it's the one that we've worked the most and it's the one there's been uh well it's been going on for years now and we had had a lot of work going on there so if we're going to welch's pictures this is eta on july this year so this is the construction of the tokema this is the center of the tokemak this is where we are or i think it's a bit more or advanced at the moment but this is a good image of how it's progressing and now you have well that's what we're going to go for all the plant systems and everything together working together so if we go for what's inside eater and there's a number of different components that make make up the eater talking about itself it's not one system it's not two systems it's not even five systems this goes to a number more than 50 systems that are then multiplied by several hundreds of equipments so and each is crucial as the next to create and sustain pla create and sustain the plasma we'll look now at the magnets and the vacuum vessel which are some of the big components within the token mark so uh the magnets the magnets are several superconducting magnets which are used to produce the magnetic field as i said before the plasma is achieved by magnetic confinement so magnets are the key element of this reactor there are large d-shaped toroidal field magnets which are placed around the vacuum vessel for confinement of the plasma and then polaroid will fill magnets situated outside the throttle filled to contribute to stability the central solenoid however is housed inside the central column of the tokamak and is the most powerful in magnet in the eta assembly and will initiate sustain the plasma current the solenoid is the backbone of eta magnet system the key challenge for this one are of course their size their heat rate the weight is approximately 25 ton each to a thousand tone and which on the other side makes remote handling maintenance and everything that we need to do during operation well even construction constructing this super magnet superconducting magnets has been a problem but well we made it it's it's getting there but now we need to think ahead and it's on the operational part of the reactant how we're going to maintain them um so now vacuum vessel the vacuum vessel is where the eater experiments will take place it's a sealed container that houses the fusion reactors and acts as the first safety container barrier as well as providing support to for other in-vessel components such as the bridge blanket and the diverter the vessel it provides a high vacuum environment for the plasma and improves radiation shielding and plasma stability 44 pots in the vessel that allow access for remote handling operations diagnostic heat heating and vacuum systems in-wall shielding is provided also in space between the double walls of the vacuum vessel to protect the components as you can imagine this is a huge component and the the goal is vacuum so our key challenge is how we maintain vacuum how can we do operation how can we use remote handling systems and ensure that the ceilings are still sealing still operating and still efficiently maintaining vacuum inside the vessel so these are the two great ones big ones and though we're gonna go for two more and then we change quarterbacks so we have blankets and cryostat the blankets are designed to protect and cover the completely the inner walls of the vacuum vessel they are in the steel structure and within they protect also the superconducting terroril magnets from the heat and high energy nutrients produced as i said a lot in the previous slides when you do the reaction we have ilium and nutrients so all the nutrients that are free they need to and they have high energy nutrients so then we need to make sure that they do not they do not damage our structure so the blanket will also be used to breathe stressing and the capability to feed the reaction again for future reactive for future to maintain the reaction alive future reactors will need large amounts of its own self-righteousness to power the necessary energy and can to be considered self-sustained so the kinetic energy from the nutrients is transformed into heat energy and this heat is collected by water columns the heat extracted by the water column will be used in the future fusion plants for energy production is the same process this is where it gets similar to fission where you get water being heated heat up and then using that to generate electricity for the moment eta not connected to the grid let's not forget that it's purely experimental and to prove that what we're doing is the right way to go so the key challenge for blankets are the remote handling and the repairs that we need to do during maintenance it's because it's in the center of our tokemak it's how we access it and how we can replace if we need if we need to repair how to get there so that's it for blankets if we go for christ at the crosstalk we have it's the largest stainless steel high vacuum pressure chamber ever built in the world providing a high vacuum ultra cool environment for the eater vacuum vessel and the superconducting magnets there's large elbows situating between between the cryostat and the vacuum vessel which will allow for thermal contraction and expansion of the structure during operations uh for this one as you can imagine is again the same thing is they they are close contact in terms of maintaining vacuum and maintaining the vacuum vessel working so it's how can we ensure that the receiving of cutting services is okay and also rejoining the services whenever we need to operate within it so that's it for eta and if we go for the big brother of of um demo so demo is a project um in the next fusion generation reactor so demo is the bigger eater that can be connected to the crit it's inspired in eater it will take all the feedback that he can from eater design into construction everything that went wrong in itae it's uh oh and well that worked on eta will be taken in as input for demo so the demo has a big road map that depends on eta start of operation but in any case the design already started and it's meant to have a conceptual design by 2030 and have engineering design by 2040 and start construction after that so the overall targets for the demo reactor are similar to those of eta but in this case the major goal is to actually produce energy that can be injected to the power grid so that's it for demo so we keep the same call as eta but more as a connected to the grid reactor so if now we go to step which is an english project that means spherical token for energy production and is uk product type for commercial nuclear fusion reactors that will be connected to the crate um i've heard people calling the step as the smr of fusion reactors i'm not sure if everyone will agree but in fact it can be called that it's a smaller it's a smaller nuclear reaction reactor and will be connected to the grid and is intended to check if it is visible and economically doable for commercial use so this co this reactor has some different characteristics than the eta one um and the demo also but because first of all this shape is not a talker mac so the core of the reactor is not a talker mark is um it's a spherical core which is more like a chord apple instead of a donut to make it simple so the technical objects is for this is um same as before it's always the same it's produce energy make sure it's safe make sure it's commercially viable that we achieve plasma stability that is self-breathing through zoom and of course that we can do remote handle maintenance and operations road map for this project is a bit shorter so we are hoping for having a complete complete and operating uh reactor by 2040 which is as you can have seen from the last slide uh demo construction will start in 2040 so it's a must it's a much faster reactor and goals for this one so this is step we get another english project that i felt that it was necessary to add it even if it is a research reactor it's a mast has been operating since well he operated between 2000 to 2013 and it is it's now going to be upgraded to help and get some experience returned from to be used in the step program mo mainly the the test of the unique system of minimizing the exhaust hit from the hot cast of fusion fuels so this is just a re well just it's a it's it's an experimental reactor that will be used to get results and test things before we can finalize the design for step and that's it so now we go for my favorite part as decommissioning i i had to include something about the commissioning and it's because in the nuclear world i think everyone knows that we start thinking about their commissioning from day zero of a reactor life you won't do safety regulations without getting the the commissioning plan even if it's just that two pages or just the preliminary uh decommissioning plan um that commissioning plan to to go over the the reactor so um this is the last phase and probably the most important oh because after reactor dies we need to do something we need to get it back we need to get earth back to its normal situation so the decommissioning phase is not it's one of the most challenging ones because first of all it doesn't make money so if we don't get money people tend to forget or tend to not want to do it because you will not produce energy and so will not get us something out of it but do decorationing is something that is done after 40 years 50 60 years of operation and sometimes even less but there's people going in people going out data that is lost it's paper paperwork there's been i don't know forgot and misplaced and so it's really hard to track all the information and where things are and so it's a major problem to get everything together and have everything according and ready to go for that commissioning so for this reason and having the good news that digital transformation is coming in um strong power and being able to do 3d scans we do being able to do digital twins and getting us platforms to train the operators train the people and the staff that is going to do the remote operated operations so this is now being introduced also in fusion where they're already thinking of oh how can we do robotic handles operations now that we have the designs how can we do a digital twin now with all the information that we get from the design how can we get now a digital chain that can be used later for decommissioning so the the way of thinking is starting to change and getting there or the point where okay we know that now digital is a big thing and and now we can transfer that and train people to be better at their commissioning at the end and keep that that information safe for later use so i've been having sorry i have a message that i need to stop just say i system involvement i would go quickly for ssm involvement if you need any more information um i'll just send me a message or an email and i'll get to get back to you so with our system we work with ita demo and step it has been our main project where we have engaged in momentum consortium that we do all kinds of activities within the site and outside the site so it's engineering services that go from system engineering to construction manufacturing and everything we support the client as we can as much as we can basically so if you need more information on that either visit your site or send me an email and we'll get your information as much as possible so now it's just the last three slides and we changed completely to topic and i'll make sure it's fast so people can stop sending me a message to stop talking um so our system has a big project that it's a diversity so making sure that even though we work in a niche environment that is nuclear and we get to a point where there is a diversity level which is acceptable i would say where they are an equal room for women and men to work on the same kind of things so and as a project engineer i would go for this really rational and logical aspect is why would this be interesting for me why would it would help me so one side is because the teams are better if they mix there's more ideas coming in there's more diversity of ways of thinking logical thinking can be logical but everyone has their own logic of getting to a solution so engineering is problem solving and if we have 10 heads that think exactly the same we're not going to get a solution we're going to get one solution out of it if we have an area of 5 10 different heads working with different ideas different ways of thinking seeing things then we get amazing we get loads of solutions that then we can choose and take the good bits of each and get to a perfect solution so that's one that's good good good result that's what we want and so if we get a better better solution then we're more efficient in terms of costs in terms of quality and of course we are 50 50 in this world so we can't only work with one side it wouldn't be fair and it's not good so now just to um the last slide is our three pillars of our system um which is for us at the moment the next five year roadmap to recruit talent retention and career by recruiting is recruiting by quality and its kills independently of gender and where they come from and also go and teach younger kids younger girls that engineering's for everyone and not only uh as they they might see it as only men's side or are not really adapted to girls and it is an open subject for everyone talent retention make sure that everyone is happy and motivated to work because if you're not motivated it's not worth it's not worth continue working on what you do might as well change and then career make sure that everyone has equal career um opportunities and that's it that's it i know i have a little message coming up that's it for me uh so yeah don't forget nuclear fusion nuclear engineering and then diversity i'm sorry thank you very much isabel that's uh that's uh brilliant thank you very much it's amazing isn't it how quickly 30 minutes can disappear when you're presented you did a fantastic job thank you very much you know i was privileged enough to visit ita uh uh in july and i must say it's an amazing site considering that what within the last decade it was open field with songlia running around that's wild boar and that whole site's been transformed um by 35 nations effectively getting involved and putting together an amazing project and let's face it you know what the pandemic has also seen and then nations can come together and put amazing projects together the peace on uh incredible one is important the whole edi thing we could take lots of lots of time on that uh you know we don't want to miss out on the talents of the of half the population when we do need them to be involved in all these amazing projects that we've got lined up um we haven't got time for questions uh unfortunately we will pass them on through you electronically isabel and you can respond to those in your leisure thank you very much

2021-10-30 23:06

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